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SENESCENCE 

THE  LAST  HALF  OF  LIFE 


BY  G.  STANLEY  HALL 

SENESCENCE 

RECREATIONS  OF  A 
PSYCHOLOGIST 

MORALE 
ADOLESCENCE 

YOUTH 
EDUCATIONAL   PROBLEMS 

FOUNDERS  OF  MODERN 
PSYCHOLOGY 

ASPECTS    OF    CHILD    LIFE    AND 
EDUCATION 

D.     APPLETON    AND    COMPANY 
Publishers  New  York 

T241C 


SENESCENCE 

THE  LAST  HALF  OF  LIFE 


BY 


G.  STANLEY  HALL    PH.D.,  LL.D. 
^ 

AUTHOR  or  "ADOLESCENCE,"  "EDUCATIONAL  PROBLEMS,"  "FOUNDERS 

or  MODERN  PSYCHOLOGY,"  "MORALE,"  "RECREATIONS 

or  A  PSYCHOLOGIST,"  ETC. 


D.  APPLETON  AND  COMPANY 

NEW  YORK    ::    MCMXXII    ::    LONDON 


COPYRIGHT,   1922,   BY 

D.  APPLETON  AND  COMPANY 


PRINTED  IN  TBS  UNITED  STATES  OF  AMERICA 


FOREWORD 

IN  this  book  I  have  tried  to  present  the  subjects  of  Old 
Age  and  Death  from  as  many  viewpoints  as  possible  in 
order  to  show  how  the  ignorant  and  the  learned,  the 
child,  the  adult,  and  the  old,  savage  and  civilized  man, 
pagans  and  Christians,  the  ancient  and  the  modern 
world,  the  representatives  of  various  sciences,  and  dif- 
ferent individuals  have  viewed  these  problems,  letting 
each  class,  so  far  as  I  could,  speak  for  itself.  This  part 
of  the  task  has  been  long  and  arduous  and  my  conspec- 
tus is  not  entirely  encyclopedic,  as  it  set  out  to  be.  I  have 
also  tried  to  develop  an  idea  of  death,  and  especially  of 
old  age,  which  I  believe  to  be,  if  not  essentially  new,  more 
true  to  the  facts  of  life  and  mind  than  those  now  cur- 
rent, and  which  I  think  much  needed  by  the  world  just 
now.  Despite  the  great  and  growing  interest  that  has 
impelled  this  study,  its  themes  have  proved  increasingly 
depressing,  so  that  its  conclusion  brings  a  unique  relief 
that  I  may  now  turn  to  more  cheerful  occupations,  al- 
though it  would  be  craven  to  plead  this  as  an  extenua- 
tion of  the  shortcomings  of  which  I  am  increasingly 
conscious.  If  I  have  at  certain  points  drawn  too  frankly 
upon  my  own  personal  experiences  with  age  I  realize 
that  this  does  not  compensate  for  my  limitations  in  some 
of  the  special  fields  I  ventured  to  enter.  I  have  had  in 
mind  throughout  chiefly  the  nature  and  needs  of  intelli- 
gent people  passing  or  past  middle  life  quite  as  much  as 
of  those  actually  entering  old  age.  It  is  hoped  that  the 
data  here  garnered  and  the  views  propounded  may  help 
to  a  better  and  more  correct  understanding  of  the  na- 
ture and  functions  of  old  age,  and  also  be  a  psychol- 


FOREWORD 

ogist's  contribution  to  the  long-desired  but  long-delayed 
science  of  gerontology. 

It  is  a  pleasant  duty  to  express  my  personal  obliga- 
tions to  the  Library  of  Clark  University  and  its  staff, 
and  particularly  to  my  secretary,  Miss  Mary  M.  Mc- 
Loughlin,  who  has  not  only  typed  and  read  the  proof  of 
all  the  book  but  has  been  of  great  assistance  in  finding 
references  and  made  many  helpful  suggestions. 

G.  STAN^LEY  HALL 


INTRODUCTION 

OUR  life,  bounded  by  birth  and  death,  has  five  chief 
stages,  each  of  which,  while  it  may  be  divided  into  sub- 
stages,  also  passes  into  the  next  so  gradually  that  we 
cannot  date,  save  roughly  and  approximately,  the  transi- 
tion from  one  period  to  that  which  succeeds  it.  These 
more  marked  nodes  in  the  unity  of  man's  individual  ex- 
istence are:  (i)  childhood,  (2)  adolescence  from  pu- 
berty to  full  nubility,  (3)  middle  life  or  the  prime,  when 
we  are  at  the  apex  of  our  aggregate  of  powers,  ranging 
from  twenty-five  or  thirty  to  forty  or  forty-five  and 
comprising  thus  the  fifteen  or  twenty  years  now  com- 
monly called  our  best,  (4)  senescence,  which  begins  in 
the  early  forties,  or  before  in  woman,  and  (5)  senecti- 
tude,  the  post-climacteric  or  old  age  proper.  My  own 
life  work,  such  as  it  is,  as  a  genetic  psychologist  was 
devoted  for  years  to  the  study  of  infancy  and  childhood, 
then  to  the  phenomena  of  youth,  later  to  adulthood  and 
the  stage  of  sex  maturity.  To  complete  a  long-cher- 
ished program  I  have  now  finally  tried,  aided  by  the 
first-hand  knowledge  that  advancing  years  have 
brought,  to  understand  better  the  two  last  and  closing 
stages  of  human  life. 

In  fact  ever  since  I  published  my  Adolescence  in  1904 
I  have  hoped  to  live  to  complement  it  by  a  study  of  sen- 
escence. The  former  could  not  have  been  written  in  the 
midst  of  the  seething  phenomena  it  describes,  as  this 
must  be.  We  cannot  outgrow  and  look  back  upon  old 
age,  for  the  course  of  time  cannot  be  reversed,  as  Plato 
fancied  life  beginning  in  senility  and  ending  in  the 
mother's  womb.  The  literature  on  this  theme  is  limited 

vii 


INTRODUCTION 

and  there  are  few  specialists  in  gerontology  even  among 
physicians.  Its  physiological  and  pathological  aspects 
have  been  treated  not  only  for  plants  and  animals  but 
for  man,  and  this  has  been  done  best  by  men  in  their 
prime.  For  its  more  subjective  and  psychological  as- 
pects, however,  we  shall  always  be  dependent  chiefly 
upon  those  who  are  undergoing  its  manifold  metamor- 
phoses and  therefore  lack  the  detachment  that  alone  can 
give  us  a  true  and  broad  perspective. 

Again,  youth  is  an  exhilarating,  age  a  depressing 
theme.  Both  have  their  zest  but  they  are  as  unlike  as 
the  mood  of  morning  and  evening,  spring  and  autumn. 
Despite  the  interest  that  has  impelled  the  preparation  of 
these  chapters  there  is,  thus,  a  unique  relief  that  they  are 
done  and  that  the  mind  can  turn  away  from  the  con- 
templation of  the  terminal  stage  of  life.  An  old  man 
devoting  himself  for  many  months  to  the  study  of  senec- 
titude  and  death  has  a  certain  pathetic  aspect,  even  to 
those  nearest  him,  so  that  his  very  household  brightens 
as  his  task  draws  toward  its  close.  It  was  begun,  not 
chiefly  for  others,  even  for  other  old  people,  but  because 
the  author  felt  impelled  upon  entering  this  new  stage 
of  life  and  upon  retirement  from  active  duties,  to  make 
a  self-survey,  to  face  reality,  to  understand  more 
clearly  what  age  was  and  meant  for  himself,  and  to  be 
rightly  oriented  in  the  post-graduate  course  of  life  into 
which  he  had  been  entered.  The  decision  to  publish 
came  later  in  the  hope  that  his  text  might  prove  helpful, 
not  only  to  fellow  students  in  the  same  curriculum  but 
to  those  just  passing  middle  life,  for  the  phenomena  of 
age  begin  in  the  early  forties,  when  all  should  think 
of  preparing  for  old  age. 

Resent,  resist,  or  ignore  it  as  we  will,  the  fact  is  that 
when  we  are  once  thought  of  as  old,  whether  because  of 
mental  or  physical  signs  or  by  withdrawal  from  our 
wonted  sphere  of  activities,  we  enter  a  class  more  or  less 

viii 


INTRODUCTION 

apart  and  by  ourselves.  We  can  claim,  if  we  will,  cer- 
tain exemptions,  privileges,  immunities,  and  even  de- 
mand allowances ;  but,  on  the  other  hand,  we  are  liable 
to  feel  set  aside  by,  or  to  make  room  for,  younger  people 
and  find  that  even  the  new  or  old  services  we  have  a 
new  urge  to  render  may  be  declined.  Many  things  meant 
or  not  meant  to  do  so,  remind  us  of  our  age.  Friends 
and  perhaps  even  critics  show  that  they  take  it  into  con- 
sideration. Shortcomings  that  date  from  earlier  years 
are  now  ascribed  to  age.  We  feel,  often  falsely,  that 
we  are  observed  or  even  spied  upon  for  signs  of  its 
approach,  and  we  are  constantly  tempted  to  do  or  say 
things  to  show  that  it  is  not  yet  upon  us.  Only  later 
comes  the  stage  of  vaunting  it,  proclaiming  openly  our 
tale  of  years  and  perhaps  posing  as  prodigies  of  sen- 
escence. Where  the  transition  from  leadership  toward 
the  chimney  corner  is  sudden,  this  sense  of  aloofness 
and  all  its  subjective  experiences  becomes  acute,  while 
only  if  it  is  very  gradual  may  we  pass  into  innocuous 
desuetude  and  hardly  know  it.  Thus  in  all  these  and 
other  ways  isolation  and  the  enhanced  individuation 
characteristic  of  age  separate  us  until  in  fact  we  feel 
more  or  less  a  caste  apart.  Despite  all,  however,  there  is 
a  rapport  between  us  oldsters,  and  we  understand  each 
other  almost  esoterically.  We  must  accept  and  recog- 
nize this  better  knowledge  of  this  stage  of  life  as  part 
of  our  present  duty  in  the  community. 

Thus  the  chief  thesis  of  this  book  is  that  we  have  a 
function  in  the  world  that  we  have  not  yet  risen  to  and 
which  is  of  the  utmost  importance — far  greater,  in  fact, 
in  the  present  stage  of  the  world  than  ever  before,  and 
that  this  new  and  culminating  service  can  only  be  seen 
and  prepared  for  by  first  realizing  what  ripe  and  normal 
age  really  is,  means,  can,  should,  and  now  must  do,  if 
our  race  is  ever  to  achieve  its  true  goal.  For  both  my 
purposes,  the  personal  and  later  public  one,  it  has  seemed 

ix 


INTRODUCTION 

wisest  to  give  much  space  to  a  conspectus  of  opinions 
by  way  of  epitomes  of  the  views  of  those  who  have 
considered  the  subject  from  the  most  diverse  stand- 
points, and  thus  to  let  them  speak  for  themselves.  Both 
my  own  standpoint  and  my  conclusions  I  believe  to  be 
justified  by  these  data. 

But,  first,  in  a  lighter  and  more  personal  vein  and  by 
way  of  further  introduction,  let  me  state  that  after  six 
years  of  post-graduate  study  abroad,  two  of  teaching  at 
Harvard,  and  eight  of  professoring  at  the  Johns  Hop- 
kins, I  found  myself  at  the  head  of  a  new  university, 
from  which  latter  post,  after  thirty-one  years  of  ser- 
vice, I  have  just  retired  and  become  a  pensioner.  In 
this  last  left  position  I  had  to  do  creative  educational 
work  and  shape  new  policies.  I  was  given  unusual  free- 
dom and  threw  my  heart  and  soul  into  the  work,  making 
it  more  or  less  of  a  new  departure.  I  nursed  the  infancy 
of  the  institution  with  almost  maternal  solicitude,  saw 
it  through  various  diseases  incident  to  the  early  stages 
of  its  development,  and  steered  it  through  several  crises 
that  taxed  my  physical  and  mental  powers  to  their  utter- 
most. In  its  service  I  had  to  do,  as  best  I  could,  many 
things  for  which  I  was  little  adapted  by  training  or 
talent  and  some  of  which  were  personally  distasteful. 
But  even  to  these  I  had  given  myself  with  loyalty  and 
occasionally  with  abandon,  as  my  "bit"  in  life,  remem- 
bering that  while  men  come  and  go,  good  institutions 
should,  like  Tennyson's  brook,  "go  on  forever." 

There  is  always  considerable  publicity  in  such  work 
and  one  has  always  to  consider,  in  every  measure,  its 
effects  upon  the  controlling  board  in  whom  the  prime  re- 
sponsibility for  its  welfare  is  vested,  the  public,  the  fac- 
ulty, and  the  students;  and  between  the  points  of  view 
of  these  four  parties  concerned  there  are  often  discrep- 
ancies so  wide  that  if  any  of  them  knew  how  the  others 
felt  there  might  be  serious  trouble.  Occasionally,  too, 


INTRODUCTION 

my  own  opinion  differed  from  all  the  others,  and  this 
involved  a  fifth  factor  to  be  reckoned  with.  Thus,  much 
effort  had  to  be  directed  toward  compounding  different 
interests  and  not  infrequently  the  only  way  open  seemed 
to  be  concealment,  temporary  at  least,  of  the  views  of 
one  of  these  elements,  because  untimely  disclosure  might 
have  brought  open  rupture.  However,  I  had  muddled 
on  as  best  I  could,  learning  much  tact  and  diplomacy 
and  various  mediatorial  devices  as  the  years  rolled  by. 

And  now  I  have  resigned,  and  after  months  of  delay 
and  with  gratifying  expressions  of  regret,  another 
younger  captain,  whom,  happily,  I  can  fully  trust,  is 
in  my  place.  I  had  always  planned  that  my  retirement, 
when  it  came,  should  be  complete.  I  would  do  my  full 
duty  up  to  the  last  moment  and  then  sever  every  tie 
and  entirely  efface  myself,  so  far  as  the  institution  I 
had  served  was  concerned,  and  would  distinctly  avoid 
every  worry,  even  as  to  the  fate  of  my  most  cherished 
policies.  This  was  only  fair  to  my  successor  and  all  my 
interests  must  henceforth  be  vested  elsewhere.  But 
what  a  break  after  all  these  decades !  It  seemed  almost 
like  anticipatory  death,  and  the  press  notices  of  my  with- 
drawal read  to  me  not  unlike  obituaries.  The  very  kind- 
ness of  all  these  and  of  the  many  private  letters  and 
messages  that  came  to  me  suggested  that  their  authors 
had  been  prompted  by  the  old  principle,  De  mortuis  nil 
nisi  bonum. 

For  more  than  forty  years  I  have  lectured  at  eleven 
o'clock  and  the  cessation  of  this  function  leaves  a  curious 
void.  My  friends  have  already  fancied  that  I  tend  to 
grow  loquacious  at  that  hour.  If  I  speak  or  write  now, 
it  must  be  to  a  very  different  clientele.  During  all  these 
years,  too,  I  have  held  a  seminary  nearly  every  Monday 
night,  and  now  when  this  evening  comes  around  my 
faculties  activate,  even  if  bombinantes  in  vacuo.  On 
those  evenings  I  have  been  greatly  stimulated  by  fa- 

xi 


INTRODUCTION 

miliar  contact  with  vigorous  student  minds,  for  on  these 
occasions  they  and  I  have  inspired  each  other  to  some  of 
our  best  apergus.  But  now  this  contact  is  gone  forever. 
My  Journal,  which  for  more  than  thirty  years  had  taken 
so  much  of  my  care  and,  at  first  in  its  nursling  period, 
of  my  surplus  funds  and  had  become  for  me  an  institu- 
tion in  itself,  is  also  now  transferred  to  better  hands. 

Thus,  I  am  rather  summarily  divorced  from  my 
world,  and  it  might  seem  at  first  as  if  there  was  little 
more  to  be  said  of  me  save  to  record  the  date  of  my 
death — and  we  all  know  that  men  who  retire  often  die 
soon  afterwards.  So  my  prayer  perhaps  should  be  Nunc 
dimittis.  Ex-presidents,  like  founders  of  institutions, 
have  often  lived  to  become  meddling  nuisances,  so  that 
even  those  whom  they  have  most  profited,  secretly  and 
perhaps  unconsciously  long  to  participate  in  an  impres- 
sive funeral  for  them.  What  can  remain  but  a  trivial 
postscript?  And  would  not  some  of  the  suggested  forms 
of  painless  extinction  be  worthy  of  consideration?  Of 
course  it  is  bitter  to  feign  that  I  am  suddenly  dead  to 
these  interests  I  have  so  long  lived  for,  as  all  the  pro- 
prieties demand  I  should  do  and  as  I  inexorably  will 
to  do  for  my  very  heart  and  soul  went  into  them.  But 
I  did  not  build  a  monument  to  myself  in  any  sense  but 
strove  only  to  fashion  an  instrument  of  service  and 
such  I  know  it  will  remain — and,  I  hope,  far  more  effec- 
tively than  under  my  hand. 

But  I  thank  whatever  gods  there  are  that  all  this 
painful  renunciation  has  its  very  satisfying  compensa- 
tions and  that  there  are  other  counsels  than  those  of 
despair,  seeing  which  I  can  take  heart  again,  and  that 
these  are  so  satisfying  that  I  do  not  need  to  have  re- 
course to  wood-sawing,  like  the  Kaiser,  though  I  have 
a  new  sympathy  even  for  him. 

My  very  first  and  hardest  duty  of  all  is  to  realize 
that  I  am  really  and  truly  old.  Associated  for  so  many 

xii 


INTRODUCTION 

years  with  young  men  and  able  to  keep  pace  with  them 
in  my  own  line  of  work,  carrying  without  scathe  not  a 
few  extra  burdens  at  times,  and  especially  during  the 
war,  and  having,  varied  as  my  duties  were,  fallen  into 
a  certain  weekly  and  monthly  routine  that  varied  little 
from  year  to  year,  I  had  not  realized  that  age  was,  all 
the  while,  creeping  upon  me.  But  now  that  I  am  out 
the  full  realization  that  I  have  reached  and  passed  the 
scripturally  allotted  span  of  years  comes  upon  me  almost 
with  a  shock.  Emerson  says  that  a  task  is  a  life-pre- 
server, and  now  that  mine  is  gone  I  must  swim  or  go 
under.  To  be  sure,  I  had  been  conscious  during  half 
a  decade  of  certain  slight  incipient  infirmities  and  had 
had  moments  of  idealizing  the  leisure  which  retirement 
would  bring.  But  when  it  came  I  was  so  overwhelmed 
and  almost  distracted  by  its  completeness  that  I  was 
at  a  loss,  for  a  time,  to  know  how  to  use  it.  I  might 
travel,  especially  in  the  Orient,  as  I  had  long  wanted  to 
do,  for  I  feel  that  I  have  a  certain  right  to  a  "good 
time"  for  myself  since  my  life  has  been  a  very  indus- 
trious one  and  almost  entirely  in  the  service  of  others. 
I  might  live  much  out-of-doors  on  my  small  farm ;  read 
for  pleasure,  for  I  have  literary  tastes ;  move  to  a  large 
city  and  take  in  its  amusements,  of  which  I  am  fond; 
devote  myself  more  to  my  family,  whom  I  now  feel  I 
have  rather  neglected ;  or  give  more  time  to  certain  avo- 
cations and  interests  in  which  I  have  dabbled  but  have 
never  had  time  to  cultivate  save  in  the  crudest  way.  Or, 
finally,  I  could  do  a  little  of  all  or  several  of  these  things 
in  turn.  But  no  program  that  I  can  construct  out  of 
such  possibilities  seems  entirely  satisfactory.  I  surely 
may  indulge  myself  a  little  more  in  many  ways  but  I 
really  want  and  ought  to  do  something  useful  and  with 
a  unitary  purpose.  Thus,  I  might  have  spent  much 
time  as  Senex  qu&rans  institutum  vitcz  but  for  the  sav- 
ing fact  that  there  are  certain  very  specific  things  which 
xiii 


INTRODUCTION 

for  years  I  have  longed  to  do,  and  indeed  have  already 
well  begun,  and  to  which,  with  this  new  leisure,  I  can 
now  devote  myself  as  never  before. 

As  preliminary  to  even  this,  it  slowly  came  to  me  that 
I  must,  first  of  all,  take  careful  stock  of  myself  and  now 
seek  to  attain  more  of  the  self-knowledge  that  Socrates 
taught  the  world  was  the  highest,  hardest,  and  last  of 
all  forms  of  knowledge.  I  must  know,  too,  just  how  I 
stand  in  with  my  present  stage  of  life.  Hence  I  began 
with  a  physical  inventory  and  visited  doctors.  The  ocu- 
list found  a  slight  but  unsuspected  defect  in  one  eye 
and  improved  my  sight,  which  was  fairly  good  before, 
by  better  glasses.  The  aurist  found  even  the  less  sensi- 
tive ear  fairly  good.  Digestion  was  found  to  be  above 
the  average.  I  had  for  years  been  losing  two  or  three 
pounds  a  year,  but  this  rather  than  the  opposite  tendency 
to  corpulence  was  pronounced  good  (Corpora  sicca 
durant),  and  I  was  told  that  I  might  go  on  unloading 
myself  of  superfluous  tissue  for  fifteen  or  twenty  years 
before  I  became  too  emaciated  to  live,  which  humans, 
like  starving  animals,  usually  do  on  losing  about  one- 
third  of  their  weight.  My  heart  would  probably  last 
about  the  same  length  of  time  if  I  did  not  abuse  it,  and 
smoking  in  moderation,  a  great  solace,  was  not  forbid- 
den. A  little  wine,  "the  milk  of  old  age,"  was  not  taboo 
and  I  was  given  a  prescription  to  enable  me  to  get  it 
if  I  desired,  even  in  these  prohibition  days.  One  sug- 
gested that  I  insure  my  life  heavily  and  another  advised 
an  annuity;  but  I  thought  neither  of  these  quite  fair 
in  view  of  the  above  findings,  for  I  did  not  wish  to 
profiteer  on  my  prospects  of  life. 

This  hygienic  survey  reinforced  what  I  had  realized 
before,  namely,  that  physicians  know  very  little  of  old 
age.  Few  have  specialized  in  its  distinctive  needs,  as 
they  have  in  the  diseases  of  women  and  children  and  the 
rest.  Thus  the  older  a  man  is,  the  more  he  must  depend 

xiv 


INTRODUCTION 

upon  his  own  hygienic  sagacity  for  health  and  long  life. 
The  lives  of  nearly  all  the  centenarians  I  have  been  able 
to  find  show  that  they  owe  their  longevity  far  more  to 
their  own  insight  than  to  medical  care,  and  there  seems 
to  be  a  far  greater  individual  difference  of  needs  than 
medicine  yet  recognizes.  Of  the  philosopher,  Kant,  it 
was  said  that  he  spent  more  mentality  in  keeping  his 
congenitally  feeble  body  alive  and  in  good  trim  to  the 
age  of  eighty  than  he  expended  in  all  the  fourteen 
closely  printed  volumes  of  his  epoch-making  Works. 

Thus,  again,  I  realized  that  I  was  alone,  indeed  in  a 
new  kind  of  solitude,  and  must  pursue  the  rest  of  my 
way  in  life  by  a  more  or  less  individual  research  as  to 
how  to  keep  well  and  at  the  top  of  my  condition.  In  a 
word,  I  must  henceforth,  for  the  most  part,  be  my  own 
doctor.  All  of  those  I  consulted  agreed  that  I  must 
eat  moderately,  slowly,  oftener,  less  at  a  time,  sleep 
regularly,  cultivate  the  open  air,  exercise  till  fatigue 
came  and  then  promptly  stop,  be  cheerful,  and  avoid 
"nerves,"  worry,  and  all  excesses.  But  with  these  com- 
monplaces the  agreement  ceased.  One  said  I  needed 
change,  as  if,  indeed,  I  was  not  getting  it  with  a  ven- 
geance. One  suggested  Fletcherizing,  while  another 
thought  this  bad  for  the  large  intestine,  which  needed 
more  coarse  material  to  stimulate  its  action.  One 
thought  there  was  great  virtue  in  cold,  another  in  warm 
baths.  Two  prescribed  a  diet,  while  another  said,  "Eat 
what  you  like,  with  discretion."  One  suggested  thyroid 
extract  and  perhaps  Brown-Sequard's  testicular  juices, 
and  there  seemed  to  be  a  more  general  agreement  that 
a  man  is  as  old,  not  as  his  heart  and  arteries  as  was  once 
thought,  but  as  his  endocrine  glands.  One  would  give 
chief  attention  to  the  colon  and  recommended  Metchni- 
koffs  tablets.  One  prescribed  Sanford  Bennett's  exer- 
cises which  made  him  an  athlete  at  seventy-two.  Rub- 
bing or  self-massage  on  rising  and  retiring  was  com- 

xv 


INTRODUCTION 

mended.  Battle  Creek  advises  bowel  movements  not 
only  daily  but  oftener,  while  others  insist  that  constipa- 
tion should  and  normally  does  increase  with  old  age. 
Pavlovists,  especially  Sternberg  in  his  writings,  would 
have  us  trust  appetite  implicitly,  believing  that  it  always 
points  true  as  the  needle  to  the  pole  to  the  nutritive 
needs  of  both  sick  and  well  and  that  it  gives  the  sole 
momentum  to  all  the  digestive  processes,  even  down  to 
the  very  end  of  the  alimentary  canal ;  while  others  pre- 
scribe everything  chemically,  calculating  to  a  nicety 
the  proportions  of  carbohydrates,  fats,  calories,  and  the 
rest,  with  no  reference  to  gustatory  inclination. 

Perhaps  I  should  try  out  all  these  suggestions  in  turn 
and  seek  to  find  by  experiment  which  is  really  best  for 
me.  I  almost  have  the  will  to  do  so  because  I  certainly 
illustrate  the  old  principle  that  as  life  advances  we  love 
it  not  less  but  more,  for  the  habit  of  living  grows  so 
strong  with  years  that  it  is  ever  harder  to  break  it.  All 
things  considered,  however,  it  would  rather  seem  that 
the  longer  we  live  the  harder  it  is  to  keep  on  doing  so, 
and  that  with  every  year  of  life  we  must  give  more  at- 
tention to  regimen  if  we  would  put  off  the  great  life- 
queller,  which  all  the  world  fears  and  hates  as  it  does 
nothing  else,  beyond  its  normal  term,  which  most  gen- 
erally agree  is  very  largely  heriditary.  In  fact,  as  Minot 
shows,  all  creatures  begin  to  die  at  the  very  moment  when 
they  begin  to  live.  All  theories  of  euthanasia  ignore 
the  fact  that  death  is  essentially  a  negation  of  the  will- 
to-live,  so  that  a  conscious  and  positive  will-to-die  is 
always  only  an  artifact. 

So  much  I  gathered  from  the  doctors  I  saw  or  read. 
Their  books  and  counsels  cost  me  a  tidy  sum  but  it  was 
well  worth  it.  I  now  know  myself  better  than  they, 
and  it  is  much  to  realize  that  henceforth  an  ever- 
increasing  attention  must  be  given  to  body-keeping  if 
one  would  stay  "fit"  or  even  alive.  Now  that  the  av- 

xvi 


INTRODUCTION 

erage  length  of  human  life  is  increased  and  there  are 
more  and  more  old  people,  a  fact  that  marks  the  triumph 
of  science  and  civilization,  there  is  more  need  of  study- 
ing them,  just  as  in  recent  decades  children  have  been 
studied,  for  medically,  at  least  after  the  climacteric,  they 
constitute  a  class  in  the  community  that  is  somewhat 
alien,  its  intrinsic  nature  but  litle  known,  and  the  ser- 
vices it  was  meant  to  render  but  little  utilized.1 

As  my  horizon  changed  and  I  became  more  at  home 
with  myself,  and  personal  problems  grew  nearer  and 
clearer,  I  realized  that  I  must  make  a  new  plan*  of  life, 
in  which  both  tasks  and  also  a  program  of  renunciation 
played  a  very  prominent  initial  part.  This  began  with  a 
literal  house-cleaning.  My  home,  from  attic  to  cellar, 
and  even  the  large  barn  were  more  or  less  full  of  dis- 
used articles  of  every  kind — furniture  and  even  wearing 
apparel,  still  serviceable  but  displaced  by  better  ones, 
which  it  was  now  plain  could  never  be  of  use  to  us  but 
might  be  so  to  others.  About  some  of  these  so  many 
old  associations  clustered  that  it  was  a  pang  to  part 
with  them,  but  it  was  selfish  to  keep  them  longer.  And 
so,  by  distribution  to  persons  and  institutions,  then  by 
sales,  and  finally  by  dumpage,  they  were  rigorously  got- 
ten rid  of,  room  by  room,  and  we  all  felt  relieved  phys- 
ically, mentally,  and  morally,  by  this  expropriation,  even 
though  a  few  heirlooms  were  sacrificed.  This  process 
has  many  analogies  with  those  by  which  the  body  is  rid 
of  waste  material. 

Next  came  books,  of  which  my  purchases,  when  I 
was  enthusiastic  and  had  a  passion  for  ownership  and 
completeness  in  my  favorite  topics,  had  been  extrava- 
gant for  my  means  and  which,  by  many  hundreds  of 
publisher's  gifts  for  review  in  my  journals,  had  over- 

1  In  the  preceding  paragraphs  I  have  incorporated,  with  minor  changes, 
parts  of  my  anonymous  article  on  "Old  Age"  in  the  Atlantic  Monthly  of 
January,  1921,  with  the  kind  permission  of  the  editor. 

xvii 


INTRODUCTION 

flowed  from  both  study  and  library  into  nearly  every 
room.  These,  in  open  shelves  for  greater  accessibility 
and  laboriously  and  systematically  arranged,  could  not 
be  disturbed  often  or  dusted  and  are  a  housekeeper's 
abomination.  I  had  for  years  collected  pamphlets  and 
bound  volumes  on  many  topics  in  ithe  vague  hope  of  some 
future  use,  but  which  I  now  realize  will  never  be 
warmed  up  again.  So,  section  by  section,  shelf  by  shelf, 
I  went  over  them,  reserving  all  on  topics  I  might  yet 
study,  and  after  inviting  colleagues  and  the  Library  to 
take  freely  what  they  would  I  shipped  the  residue  in 
boxes  to  antiquarian  and  second-hand  dealers  and  ac- 
cepted with  equanimity  the  pittance  they  paid.  This 
work  done  in  leisure  hours  for  months,  was  a  wrenching 
process  because  every  step  in  it  involved  the  frustration 
of  activities  once  thought  possible  but  which  now 
seemed  to  be  no  longer  so.  Little,  thus,  remained  out- 
side my  own  quite  definitely  narrowed  field  of  work 
which  I  hope  yet  to  do,  and  only  a  few  gifts  and  sets, 
along  with  texts  studied  in  younger  and  those  taught 
in  later  days  in  which  my  descendants  may  sometime 
come  to  feel  an  interest,  remain.  This  riddance  of  the 
residue  of  superfluous  printed  matter  is  not  unlike  anti- 
fat  regimens,  which  are  disagreeable  but  strengthening. 
Next,  I  attacked  a  formidable  pile  of  old  lecture  notes, 
beginning  with  a  few  small  and  faded  records  of  college 
exercises  in  bound  sheets,  including  the  Heften  of  Euro- 
pean courses,  and  finally  the  far  more  voluminous  mem- 
oranda of  my  own  lectures  for  nearly  two-score  years. 
How  crude  and  impossible  now  were  these  earlier  re- 
minders of  my  professorial  activity!  What  a  prodi- 
gious amount  of  work,  time,  and  even  manual  labor  they 
involved !  What  hardihood  of  inference  and  conclusion ! 
What  immaturity  and  even  foolhardiness  of  judgment 
on  some  of  the  greatest  problems  of  life!  If  I  wanted 
to  dignify  or  even  glorify  my  old  age  at  the  expense 

xviii 


INTRODUCTION 

of  my  youth,  here  are  abundant  data  for  so  doing.  But 
I  do  not,  and  so  I  found  peculiar  pleasure  in  consigning, 
with  my  own  hands,  armfuls  of  such  manuscript  to  the 
flames.  How  hard  I  rode  my  own  hobbies !  What  lib- 
erties I  took — and  all  with  perfect  innocence  of  intent — 
with  the  ideas  of  others,  which  insinuated  themselves 
unconsciously  into  all  of  my  mental  complexes!  And 
yet,  at  the  same  time,  how  voraciously  I  read,  how  copi- 
ously I  quoted,  and  how  radically  I  changed  the  form, 
substance,  and  scope  of  my  favorite  courses  each  year, 
slowly  improving  them  in  clarity  and  coherence!  And 
how  many  special  themes  in  my  field,  once  central,  have 
lapsed  to  secondary  importance  or  become  obsolete! 
Such  breaks  with  the  past,  which  psychology  regards  as 
analogues  of  a  catharsis  that  relieves  constipation,  have 
a  certain  insurance  value  not  only  against  ultra-conserv- 
atism but  against  the  inveterate  tendency  of  the  old  to 
hark  back  to  past  stages  of  life. 

As  a  part  of  the  process  of  reorientation  I  felt  im- 
pelled, as  I  think  natural  enough  for  a  psychologist,  to 
write  my  autobiography  and  get  myself  in  focus  genet- 
ically. To  this  I  devoted  the  first  year  after  my  retire- 
ment. It  is  now  complete  and  laid  safely  away  and  may 
or  may  not  be  published  sometime,  although  certainly 
not  at  present.  Its  preparation  served  me  well  in  ad- 
vancing my  understanding  of  the  one  I  know  best  of  all, 
and  I  would  earnestly  prescribe  such  an  occupation  as 
one  of  the  most  pleasant  and  profitable  services  intelli- 
gent old  people  can  render  to  themselves  and  perhaps 
their  posterity  and  friends,  if  not  to  the  world  at  large. 
The  reading  of  "lives,"  too,  is  often  one  of  the  most 
absorbing  and  sometimes  almost  exclusive  intellectual 
occupation  of  the  old. 

Incidental  to  this  work  I  unearthed  many  written  data 
of  the  past — my  youthful  diaries,  school  exercises,  some 
two  feet  of  letters  from  my  parents,  especially  my 

xix 


INTRODUCTION 

mother,  for  more  than  a  quarter  of  a  century  after  I 
left  home  and  before  her  death;  and  several  hundred 
large  envelopes  of  carefully  filed  correspondence  with 
many  friends  and  strangers  on  many  topics.  All  these 
had  to  be  at  least  cursorily  glanced  over.  Part  of  this 
voluminous  material  no  one,  I  am  convinced,  will  ever 
care  to  reperuse.  My  own  offspring  have  no  interest 
in  it,  so  why  not  consign  it  to  oblivion  now  that  it  has 
served  its  final  purpose?  There  is  little  of  value  to  the 
living  or  of  special  credit  to  the  dead  in  it  all ;  so  I  con- 
clude there  is  more  of  real  piety,  even  to  the  memory  of 
my  mother,  to  select  a  number  of  the  best  of  her  mis- 
sives which  most  clearly  show  her  constant  and  affec- 
tionate solicitude  and  love,  and  burn  all  the  rest.  I  am 
sure  that  both  she  and  my  father  would  heartily  com- 
mend this  course.  So,  as  I  watched  them  burn  in  the 
grate  one  solitary  spring  at  evening  twilight,  I  felt 
that  I  had  completed  a  filial  function  of  interment  of 
her  remains.  No  profane  ear  can  now  ever  hear  what 
she  whispered  into  mine.  She  tried  to  convey  every- 
thing good  in  her  beautiful  soul  to  me,  her  eldest,  wanted 
me  to  do  everything  commendable  that  she  could  not 
and  realize  all  her  own  thwarted  ambitions.  I  hope  that 
I  may  yet  do  something  more  worthy  of  her  fondest 
hopes.  If  I  seem  to  have  cremated  her  very  soul,  or  so 
much  of  it  as  she  gave  me,  I  feel  that  I  have  thus  done 
the  last  and  most  sacred  act  of  service  which  such  a  son 
can  render  such  a  mother. 

By  all  this  purgation  I  have,  at  any  rate,  saved  my 
offspring  from  a  task  that  could  not  be  other  than  pain- 
ful and  embarrassing  to  them,  and  relieved  them  from 
inheriting  a  burden  of  impedimenta  which  they  them- 
selves would  not  have  the  hardihood  to  destroy,  at  least 
for  years  after  my  demise,  and  which  could  be  of  no 
earthly  use  to  them  or  any  one  else. 

And  now  it  only  remained  for  me  to  make  my  last 

xx 


INTRODUCTION 

will  and  testament  and  bequeath  all  that  I  have  left 
where  I  hope  it  may  do  most  good.  This  should  have 
been  done  long  ago  but  I  have  been  withheld  from  this 
duty,  partly  by  preoccupation  but  far  more  by  the  in- 
stinctive reluctance  all  feel  to  thus  anticipate  their  own 
death.  A  dozen  modes  of  disposing  of  my  modest  estate 
had  occurred  to  me  and  there  were  countless  considera- 
tions to  be  weighed.  Some  provisions  were  obvious  but 
more  were  beset  with  a  puzzling  array  of  pros  and  cons. 
But  the  time  was  over-ripe,  and  so  I  nerved  myself  for 
this  ordeal,  feeling  sure  there  would  be  regrets,  revi- 
sions, or  perhaps  codicils  every  year  I  lived.  But  when 
it  was  duly  signed  and  witnessed  there  was,  on  the 
whole,  great  relief,  as  from  having  accomplished  a  long- 
looming  and  difficult  task. 

For  myself,  I  feel  thrice  fortunate  in  having  really 
found  my  goru,  the  one  thing  in  which  I  am  up  to  date 
and  seething  with  convictions,  which  I  have  never  be- 
fore had  the  courage  to  express,  and  that  I  can  now 
hope  to  devote  myself  to  with  all  my  spirit  and  under- 
standing and  with  the  abandon  the  subject  really  de- 
mands. I  will  not  accept  the  subtle  but  persistently  in- 
trusive suggestion  that  it  will  do  no  good  or  that  former 
colleagues  whom  I  esteem,  and  whose  judgment  I 
greatly  prize,  will  ignore  it  because  other  old  men  have 
written  fatuously.  I  can,  at  least,  speak  more  honestly 
than  I  have  ever  dared  to  do  before,  and  if  I  am  never 
read  or  even  venture  into  print,  I  shall  have  the  satis- 
faction of  having  clarified  and  unified  my  own  soul. 

But  before  I  can  enter  fully  into  the  functions  or  the 
service  age  ought  to  render  and  begin  the  one  thing  I 
have  always  planned  for  this  stage  of  life,  I  would  know 
more  about  what  it  really  is,  find  out  its  status,  estimate 
its  powers,  its  limitations,  its  physical  and  mental  regi- 
men; and  especially,  if  I  can,  look  death,  which  certainly 
cannot  be  very  far  off,  calmly  in  the  face.  It  is  in  this 
xxi 


INTRODUCTION 

final  stage  of  preparation  for  what  I  yet  hope  to  do 
later  that  I  invite  the  reader  to  accompany  me  through 
the  following  pages  in  the  fond  hope  that  not  only  the 
old  may  be  helped  to  better  realize  their  estate  and  their 
responsibilities  and  duties  in  the  world  of  today  but  that 
those  just  emerging  from  middle  life  and  for  whom  the 
shadows  have  just  begun  to  lengthen  may  be  better  fitted 
to  meet  old  age  when  it  overtakes  them. 


CONTENTS 

CHAPTER  PAGE 

INTRODUCTION xi 

I.    THE  YOUTH  OF  OLD  AGE i 

The  turn  of  the  tide  of  life — Relative  amount  and 
importance  of  work  accomplished  before  and  after 
forty — The  sexual  life  at  the  turn  of  the  tide  in 
man  and  woman — Osier's  views  and  critics  (E.  G. 
Dexter,  D.  A.  N.  Borland,  E.  S.  P.  Haynes)— Illus- 
trations from  Tolstoi,  Fechner,  Comte,  Swedenborg 
— The  typical  cases  of  Segantini,  Lenau,  von  Kleist, 
de  Maupassant,  Gogol,  Scheffel,  Ruskin,  and 
Nietsche — Michaelis'  "dangerous  age"  in  women — 
The  difficulty  of  determining  this  age — The  nature 
of  the  changes,  conscious  and  unconscious,  and  the 
lessons  that  people  in  this  stage  of  life  should  lay 
to  heart— H.  G.  Wells  and  Ross. 

II.     THE  HISTORY  OF  OLD  AGE 32 

The  age  of  plants  and  animals — The  Old  Stone  Age 
— Treatment  of  old  age  among  existing  savage 
tribes — The  views  of  Frazer — The  ancient  Hebrews 
and  the  Old  Testament — The  Greeks  (including 
Sparta,  the  Homeric  Age,  the  status  of  the  old  in 
Athens,  the  views  of  Plato,  Socrates'  talks  with  boys, 
Aristotle) —The  Romans  —  The  Middle  Ages  — 
Witchcraft  and  old  women — Attitude  of  children 
toward  the  old — Mantegazza's  collection  of  favorable 
and  unfavorable  views  of  age — The  division  of  life 
into  stages — The  relation  of  age  groups  to  social 
strata — The  religion  of  different  ages  of  life — The 
Vedanta — The  Freudian  war  between  the  old  and 
the  young — History  of  views  from  Cornaro  to  our 
own  time — Bacon — Addison — Burton — Swift. 

III.    LITERATURE  BY  AND  ON  THE  AGED    ....   100 
Harriet  E.  Paine — Amelia  E.  Barr — Mortimer  Col- 
lins—Col. Nicholas  Smith— Byron  C.  Utecht— J.  L. 
Smith— San  ford  Bennet— G.  E.  D.  Diamond— Car- 

xxiii 


CONTENTS 


CHAPTER  PAGE 

dinal  Gibbons — John  Burroughs — Rollo  Ogden — 
James  L.  Ludlow  —  Brander  Matthews  —  Ralph 
Waldo  Emerson — Oliver  Wendell  Holmes — Senator 
G.  F.  Hoar— William  Dean  Howells— H.  D.  Sedg- 
wick— Walt  Mason— E.  P.  Powell— U.  V.  Wilson— 
D.  G.  Brinton— N.  S.  Shaler— Anthony  Trollope— 
Stephen  Paget — Richard  le  Gallienne— -G.  S.  Street 
— C.  W.  Saleeby — Bernard  Shaw — A  few  typical 
poems  and  quotations. 

IV.     STATISTICS  OF  OLD  AGE  AND  ITS  CARE     .       .       .154 

I.  Numbers  of  old  people  increasing  in  all  known 
lands  where  data  are  available — Actuarial  and  other 
mortality  tables — Expectation  of  life  and  death-rate 
at  different  ages — Longevity  and  fecundity — Death- 
rate  in  different  occupations — Longevity  in  ancient 
Egypt  and  in  the  Middle  Ages — Diversity  of  sta- 
tistical methods  and  results. 

II.  Growing  need  of  care  for  the  indigent  old — 
Causes  of  improvidence — Ignorance  and  misconcep- 
tion of  what  old  age  is  and  means — Why  the  old 
do  not  know  themselves — Old  age  pensions  in  Ger- 
many,   Austria,    Great    Britain   and    her    colonies, 
France,  Belgium,  United  States — Industrial  pensions 
and    insurance,   beginning   with    railroads — Trades 
unions — Fraternal  organizations — Retiring  pensions 
in  the  army  and  navy — Local  and  national  insurance 
— Teachers'  pensions — The  Carnegie  Foundation — 
Criticism  of  pension  systems — Growing  magnitude, 
urgency,  and  diversity  of  views  and  methods — The 
Life   Extension   Institute — "Borrowed   Time"   and 
"Sunset"  clubs — Should  the  old  organize? 

V.  MEDICAL  VIEWS  AND  TREATMENT  OF  OLD  AGE  .  .  195 
The  self-knowledge  that  doctors  give — Insidious  ap- 
proach of  many  diseases — Medical  views  of  the  old 
of  body  and  mind  (senile  dementia) — Charcot — G. 
M.  Humphrey — Sir  James  Crichton-Browne — H. 
M.  Friedman— H.  Gilford— H.  Oertel— A.  S. 
Warthin— W.  Spielmeyer— I.  L.  Nascher— Sir  Dyce 
Duckworth — Robert  Saundy — Arnold  Lorand — T. 
D.  Crothers— C.  G.  Stockton— W.  G.  Thompson— 
M.  L.  Price— G.  S.  Keith— J.  M.  Taylor— C.  W. 
Saleeby — C.  A.  Ewald — Raymond  Pearl — Protest 
against  the  prepotence  of  heredity  in  determining 
longevity. 

xxiv 


CONTENTS 


CHAPTER  PAGE 

VI.    THE  CONTRIBUTIONS  OF  BIOLOGY  AND  PHYSIOLOGY  248 

Weismann's  immortality  of  the  germ  plasm  and  his 
denial  of  the  inheritance  of  acquired  qualities — The 
truth  and  limitations  of  his  views — The  theories  of 
Hering  and  Simon — Metchnikoff's  conception  of  the 
disharmonies  in  man,  of  the  role  of  intestinal  fauna 
and  their  products,  of  euthanasia,  and  of  the  means 
and  effects  of  prolonging  life — C.  S.  Minot's  concep- 
tion of  the  progressive  arrest  of  life  from  birth  on 
as  measured  by  declining  rate  of  growth,  and  his 
neglect  to  consider  the  dynamic  elements — C.  M. 
Child's  studies  of  rejuvenation  in  lower  and  higher 
forms  of  life  in  the  light  of  the  problems  of  sen- 
escence— J.  Loeb's  studies  of  the  effects  of  lower 
temperature,  of  toxins  and  ferments — The  preserva- 
tion of  cells  of  somatic  tissues  potentially  immortal 
under  artificial  conditions — Account  of  the  studies 
of  Carrel,  Pozzi,  and  others — Investigations  upon 
the  effects  on  sex  qualities  and  age  of  the  extracts 
and  transplantations  of  glands,  from  Claude  Bernard 
— Investigations  of  Eugene  Steinach  on  the  inter- 
change of  sex  qualities  and  rejuvenation  by  gland- 
ular operations  in  animals  and  man — G.  F.  Lyd- 
ston's  work — Serge  Voronoff's  experiments  and  his 
exposition  of  the  achievements  and  hopes  of  gland- 
ular therapy — Some  general  considerations  in  view 
of  work  in  this  field. 

VII.     REPORT  ON  QUESTIONNAIRE  RETURNS      .       .       .  319 

Their  value  suggestive  but  only  for  a  class — (i) 
Age  and  effect  of  the  first  realization  of  the  approach 
of  old  age — (2)  To  what  do  you  ascribe  your  long 
life? — (3)  How  do  you  keep  well? — (4)  Are  you 
troubled  by  regrets? — (5)  What  temptations  do  you 
feel,  old  or  new? — (6)  What  duties  do  you  feel  you 
still  owe  to  others  or  to  self? — (7)  Is  interest  in 
public  affairs  for  the  far  future  and  past,  as  com- 
pared with  what  is  closer  at  hand,  greater  or  less? 
— (8)  In  what  do  you  take  your  greatest  pleasures? 
— (9)  Do  you  enjoy  the  society  of  children,  youth, 
adults,  those  of  your  own  age  more  or  less  than  for- 
merly?— (10) Would  you  live  your  life  over  again? 
— (n)  Did  you  experience  an  "Indian  summer"  of 
renewed  vigor  before  the  winter  of  age  began? — 
(12)  Do  you  rely  more  or  less  upon  doctors  than 

XXV 


CONTENTS 


CHAPTER  PAGE 

formerly? — (13)  Do  you  get  more  or  less  from  the 
clergy  and  the  church  than  formerly? — (14) Do  you 
think  more  or  less  of  dying  and  the  hereafter? — A 
few  individual  returns  from  eminent  people. 

VIII.    SOME  CONCLUSIONS 366 

The  early  decades  of  age — The  deadline  of  seventy 
— The  patheticism  of  the  old — The  attitude  of  phy- 
sicians toward  them — Fluctuations  of  youth — Erotic 
decline — Alternations  in  the  domain  of  sleep,  food, 
mood,  irritability,  rational  self-control,  and  sex — 
The  dawn  of  old  age  in  women — Dangers  of  the 
disparity  when  December  weds  May — Sexual  hy- 
giene for  the  old — Mental  effects  of  the  dulling  of 
sensations — Lack  of  mental  pabulum — The  tedium 
vitae — Changes  in  the  emotional  life — Age  not  sec- 
ond childhood — Women  in  the  dangerous  age — 
Need  of  a  new  and  higher  type  of  old  age — Aris- 
totle's golden  mean  and  the  magnanimous  man — The 
age  of  disillusion — Increased  power  of  synthesis — 
Nature's  balance  between  old  and  young — Superior 
powers  of  the  old  in  perspective  and  larger  views — 
New  love  of  nature  and  the  country — Their  preem- 
inence in  religion,  politics,  philosophy,  morals,  and 
as  judges — Looking  within  and  without — Merging 
with  the  cosmos. 

XI.    THE  PSYCHOLOGY  OF  DEATH 439 

The  attitude  of  infancy  and  youth  toward  'death  as 
recapitulating  that  of  the  race — Suicide — The  death- 
wish — Necrophilism — The  Black  Death — Depopula- 
tion by  the  next  war — The  evolutionary  nisus  and 
death  as  its  queller — Death  symbolism  as  pervasive 
as  that  of  sex — Flirtations  of  youthful  minds  with 
the  thought  of  death — Schopenhauer's  view  of  death 
— The  separation  of  ghosts  from  the  living  among 
primitive  races — The  thanatology  of  the  Egyptians 
— The  journey  of  the  soul — Ancient  cults  of  death 
and  resurrection  in  the  religions  about  the  eastern 
Mediterranean,  based  on  the  death  of  vegetation  in 
the  fall  and  its  revival  in  the  spring,  as  a  background 
of  Pauline  Christianity — The  fading  belief  in  immor- 
tality and  Protestantism  which  now  at  funerals 
speaks  only  of  peace  and  rest — Osier's  five  hundred 
deathbeds — Influential,  plasmal,  and  personal  im- 

xxvi 


CONTENTS 


PAGE 

mortality  and  their  reciprocal  relations — Moral  effi- 
cacy of  the  doctrine  of  future  re. Yards  and  punish- 
ments— Belief  in  a  future  life  for  the  individual 
being  transformed  into  a  belief  in  the  future  of  the  . 
race  on  earth  and  the  advent  of  the  superman — 
Does  man  want  personal  immortality — Finot's  im- 
mortality of  the  decomposing  body  and  its  resolu- 
tion into  its  elements — The  Durkheim  school  and  the 
mana  doctrine  —  Schleiermacher  —  The  Schiller- 
James  view  of  the  brain  and  consciousness  as  repres- 
sive of  the  larger  life  of  the  great  Autos — The  views 
of  Plato  and  Kant — Have  God  and  Nature  cheated 
and  lied  to  us  if  the  wish  to  survive  is  false? — Noetic 
and  mystic  immortality  by  partaking  of  the  death- 
lessness  of  general  ideas — Views  of  Howison,  Royce, 
and  others — Is  there  a  true  euthanasia  or  thana- 
tophilia  ? — Diminution  of  the  desire  for  personal  im- 
mortality with  culture  and  age. 


SENESCENCE 

CHAPTER  I 

THE  YOUTH  OF  OLD  AGE 

The  turn  of  the  tide  of  life— Relative  amount  and  importance  of  work 
accomplished  before  and  after  forty — The  sexual  life  at  the  turn  of  the 
tide  in  man  and  woman — Osier's  views  and  critics  (E.  G.  Dexter, 
D.  A.  N.  Dorland,  E.  S.  P.  Haynes)— Illustrations  from  Tolstoi, 
Fechner,  Comte,  Swedenborg — The  typical  cases  of  Segantini,  Lenau, 
von  Kleist,  de  Maupassant,  Gogol,  Scheffel,  Ruskin  and  Nietzsche — 
Michaelis's  "dangerous  age"  in  women — The  difficulty  in  determining 
this  age— The  nature  of  the  changes,  conscious  and  unconscious,  and 
the  lessons  that  people  in  this  stage  of  life  should  lay  to  heart — H.  G. 
Wells  and  Ross. 

THE  easiest  division  of  every  whole  is  into  two  halves. 
Thus  day  and  night  are  bisected  by  noon  and  midnight, 
the  year  by  both  the  solstice  and  the  equinox ;  the  racer 
turns  in  the  middle  of  his  course ;  curricula,  apprentice- 
ships, and  long  tasks  have,  from  immemorial  time,  cele- 
brated the  completion  of  their  first  moiety,  and  halfway 
houses  divide  established  courses  of  travel.  So,  too,  we 
speak  of  middle  age  and  think  vaguely  of  it  as  half  way 
between  birth  and  death  or  between  adolescence  and  se- 
nescence. If  we  think  of  life  as  a  binomial  curve  rising 
from  a  base  line  at  birth  and  sinking  into  it  at  death, 
midway  is  the  highest  point  with  the  longest  ordinate; 
and  as  the  crest  of  a  wave  has  its  spindrift,  so  life  at 
this  point  often  foams,  or  at  least  shows  emulsive  ten- 
dencies. We  come  in  sight  of  the  descent  while  the 
ascent  behind  is  still  visible.  The  man  of  thirty-five 
hopes  to  live  the  allotted  span  of  seventy  and  at  forty 


SENESCENCE 

he  knows  that  in  another  two-score  years  his  work  will 
cease;  and  thus  some  comparison  of  the  past  and  future 
is  inevitable.  Some  begin  taking  stock  of  what  has  been 
and  what  remains  to  be  done,  reckoning  only  from  the 
date  of  entering  upon  their  careers  and  trying  thus  to 
judge  its  future  by  its  past.  Thus  sooner  or  later  there 
comes  to  all  a  realization  that  the  tide  that  "drew  us 
from  out  the  boundless  deep"  begins  to  "turn  again 
home." 

These  meridional  perturbations  usually  come  earlier 
in  women  than  in  men,  and  this  has  been  called  their 
"dangerous  age."  Both  sexes  realize  that  they  face  the 
bankruptcy  of  some  of  their  youthful  hopes,  and  certain 
temperaments  make  a  desperate,  now-or-never  effort  to 
realize  their  extravagant  expectations  and  are  thus  led 
to  excesses  of  many  kinds ;  while  others  capitulate  to  fate, 
lose  heart,  and  perhaps  even  lose  the  will-to-live.  Osier 
was  the  evil  genius,  the  croaking  Poe  raven  of  this 
period.  If  such  pronouncements  as  his  stimulate  talent, 
which  is  longer  lived,  they  depress  genius,  which  blos- 
soms earlier.  On  the  height  of  life  we  ought  to  pause, 
circumspect,  turn  from  the  dead  reckonings  of  the  start, 
and  ascend  as  into  an  outlook  tower  to  see,  before  it  is 
too  late,  if  we  need  to  reorient  our  course  by  the  eternal 
stars.  Here  we  begin  the  home  stretch  toward  the  finish. 
Change,  or  at  least  thoughts  of  change,  arise  even  in 
those  most  successful,  as  biography  so  abundantly 
shows,  while  even  partial  failure  impels  many  to  seek 
new  environments  and  perhaps  callings  and  some  are 
driven  to  mad  new  ventures.  Most,  however,  despite  a 
certain  perturbation,  go  on  perhaps  a  score  of  years,  and 
instead  of  anticipating  old  age  wait  till  it  is  upon  them 
and  they  have  to  restrict  their  activities  or  retire;  then 
only  do  they  accept  the  burden  of  years.  The  modifica- 
tions in  the  vita  sexualis  which  middle  life  brings  are 
only  now  beginning  to  be  understood  in  their  true  sig- 

2 


THE  YOUTH  OF  OLD  AGE 

nificance.  Its  first  flush  has  come  and  gone  and  some 
settle  to  the  tranquil  fruition  of  a  happy  married  life, 
while  others  stray  into  secret  and  forbidden  ways  or 
yield  to  the  excitements  of  overindulgence  just  when 
Nature  begins  to  suggest  more  moderation,  so  that  love 
often  grows  gross  just  when  its  sublimation  should 
begin  to  be  most  active.  One  close  and  experienced 
observer  points  out  that  the  forties  is  the  decade  of  the 
triangle,  of  the  paramour,  and  of  divorces  for  men,  and 
that  the  preceding  decade  is  so  for  women ;  but  of  course 
we  have  no  confirmatory  statistics  for  such  a  conclusion 
save  only  for  divorce.  The  following  epitomes  repre- 
sent the  chief  aspects  and  treatments  of  this  period, 
although  illustrations  of  its  phenomena  might  be  indef- 
initely multiplied. 

The  sensational  press  has  so  perverted  the  statements 
made  by  Dr.  William  Osier  in  his  farewell  address  on 
leaving  the  Johns  Hopkins  University  in  1905,  and  his 
remarks  are  so  pithy,  thinly  and  ineffectively  as  he  tried 
to  mask  his  earnestness  with  humor,  that  it  seems  worth 
while  to  quote  his  words,  as  follows : 1 

I  have  two  fixed  ideas  well  known  to  my  friends,  harmless 
obsessions  with  which  I  sometimes  bore  them,  but  which  have  a 
direct  bearing  on  this  important  problem.  The  first  is  the  com- 
parative uselessness  of  men  above  forty  years  of  age.  This  may 
seem  shocking,  and  yet,  read  aright,  the  world's  history  bears  out 
the  statement.  Take  the  sum  of  human  achievement  in  action, 
in  science,  in  art,  in  literature — subtract  the  work  of  the  men 
above  forty,  and,  while  we  should  miss  great  treasures,  even 
priceless  treasures,  we  should  practically  be  where  we  are  to-day. 
It  is  difficult  to  name  a  great  and  far-reaching  conquest  of  the 
mind  which  has  not  been  given  to  the  world  by  a  man  on  whose 
back  the  sun  was  still  shining.  The  effective,  moving,  vitalizing 
work  of  the  world  is  done  between  the  ages  of  twenty-five  and 
forty  years — these  fifteen  golden  years  of  plenty,  the  anabolic  or 
constructive  period,  in  which  there  is  always  a  balance  in  the 
mental  bank  and  the  credit  is  still  good. 

1  Scientific  American,  March  25,  1905. 

3 


SENESCENCE 

In  the  science  and  art  of  medicine  there  has  not  been  an  ad- 
vance of  the  first  rank  which  has  not  been  initiated  by  young 
or  comparatively  young  men.  Vesalius,  Harvey,  Hunter,  Bichat, 
Laennec,  Virchow,  Lister,  Koch — the  green  years  were  yet  on 
their  heads  when  their  epoch-making  studies  were  made.  To 
modify  an  old  saying,  a  man  is  sane  morally  at  thirty,  rich  men- 
tally at  forty,  wise  spiritually  at  fifty — or  never.  The  young 
men  should  be  encouraged  and  afforded  every  possible  chance  to 
show  what  is  in  them.  If  there  is  one  thing  more  than  another 
upon  which  the  professors  of  the  university  are  to  be  congratu- 
lated, it  is  this  very  sympathy  and  fellowship  with  their  junior 
associates,  upon  whom  really  in  many  departments,  in  mine  cer- 
tainly, has  fallen  the  brunt  of  the  work.  And  herein  lies  the  chief 
value  of  the  teacher  who  has  passed  his  climacteric  and  is  no 
longer  a  productive  factor;  he  can  play  the  man  midwife,  as  So- 
crates did  to  Thesetetus,  and  determine  whether  the  thoughts 
which  the  young  men  are  bringing  to  the  light  are  false  idols  or 
true  and  noble  births. 

My  second  fixed  idea  is  the  uselessness  of  men  above  sixty 
years  of  age,  and  the  incalculable  benefit  it  would  be  in  com- 
mercial, political,  and  in  professional  life  if,  as  a  matter  of  course, 
men  stopped  work  at  this  age.  Donne  tells  us  in  his  "Biathana- 
tos"  that  by  the  laws  of  certain  wise  states  sexagenarii  were  pre- 
cipitated from  a  bridge,  and  in  Rome  men  of  that  age  were  not 
admitted  to  the  suffrage,  and  were  called  depontani  because  the 
way  to  the  senate  was  per  pontem  and  they  from  age  were  not 
permitted  to  come  hither.  In  that  charming  novel,  the  "Fixed 
Period,"  Anthony  Trollope  discusses  the  practical  advantages  in 
modern  life  of  a  return  to  this  ancient  usage,  and  the  plot  hinges 
on  the  admirable  scheme  of  a  college  into  which  at  sixty  men 
retired  for  a  year  of  contemplation  before  a  peaceful  departure 
by  chloroform.  That  incalculable  benefits  might  follow  such  a 
scheme  is  apparent  to  any  one  who,  like  myself,  is  nearing  the 
limit,  and  who  has  made  a  careful  study  of  the  calamities  which 
may  befall  men  during  the  seventh  and  eighth  decades ! 

Still  more  when  he  contemplates  the  many  evils  which  they 
perpetuate  unconsciously  and  with  impunity !  As  it  can  be  main- 
tained that  all  the  great  advances  have  come  from  men  under 
forty,  so  the  history  of  the  world  shows  that  a  very  large  propor- 
tion of  the  evils  may  be  traced  to  the  sexagenarians — nearly  all 
the  great  mistakes  politically  and  socially,  all  of  the  worst  poems, 
most  of  the  bad  pictures,  a  majority  of  the  bad  novels,  and  not  a 
few  of  the  bad  sermons  and  speeches.  It  is  not  to  be  denied  that 


THE  YOUTH  OF  OLD  AGE 

occasionally  there  is  a  sexagenarian  whose  mind,  as  Cicero  re- 
marks, stands  out  of  reach  of  the  body's  decay.  Such  a  one  has 
learned  the  secret  of  Hermippus,  that  ancient  Roman,  who,  feel- 
ing that  the  silver  cord  was  loosening,  cut  himself  clear  from  all 
companions  of  his  own  age,  and  betook  himself  to  the  company  of 
young  men,  mingling  with  their  games  and  studies,  and  so  lived 
to  the  age  of  153,  puerorum  halitu  refocillatus  et  educatus.  And 
there  is  truth  in  the  story,  since  it  is  only  those  who  live  with  the 
young  who  maintain  a  fresh  outlook  on  the  new  problems  of  the 
world. 

The  teacher's  life  should  have  three  periods  —  study  until 
twenty-five,  investigation  until  forty,  professional  until  sixty,  at 
which  age  I  would  have  him  retired  on  a  double  allowance. 
Whether  Anthony  Trollope's  suggestion  of  a  college  and  chloro- 
form should  be  carried  out  or  not,  I  have  become  a  little  dubious, 
as  my  own  time  is  getting  so  short. 

E.  G.  Dexter  2  disputes  Osier's  conclusions  by  refer- 
ring to  such  well-known  cases  as  Gladstone,  Bismarck, 
von  Moltke,  Rockefeller,  Morgan,  etc.,  and  finds  that 
according  to  the  last  census  there  are  4,871,861  persons 
over  sixty  in  the  United  States.  He  recognizes  the  fact, 
however,  that  many  corporations  refuse  to  add  new  men 
to  their  working  force  who  are  beyond  forty  years  of 
age.  Dexter  had  previously  tabulated  the  age  of  the 
nearly  9,000  persons  mentioned  in  the  1900  edition  of 
Who's  Who  and  found  that  comparatively  few  who 
were  under  forty  attained  the  distinction  of  being  in- 
cluded in  this  list.  Of  6,983  men  the  median  age  was  54, 
only  one  in  six  being  below  40;  that  is,  some  16  per  cent 
were  within  Osier's  period  of  most  effective  work.  But 
he  concludes  that  in  Who's  Who  younger  men  did  not 
receive  the  recognition  given  to  their  older  confreres. 
This  ratio  he  finds  to  be  as  follows  : 

20-29        30-39        40-49        50-59        60-69 
3-9%        39-5%       &4%       i?.6%        2.4% 


3  See  Pop.  Sci.  Mo.,  July,  1902. 


SENESCENCE 

Thus  the  decade  from  30  to  39  shows  only  very  slightly 
greater  productivity  than  the  next  one,  and  less  than 
one-half  made  good,  so  far  as  public  recognition  is  con- 
cerned, before  the  age  of  40.  This  is  irrespective  of 
vocation. 

In  all  the  studies  of  genius 3  it  would  seem  that 
musicians  do  their  best  work  earliest  and  prodigies  are 
most  common  in  this  field.  In  those  callings  that  require 
a  long  preparation,  science  promises  earliest  recognition 
because  this  line  of  work  is  entered  with  better  intel- 
lectual equipment.  Here,  too,  belong  professors,  libra- 
rians, and  teachers.  Next  come  actors  and  authors,  in 
whom  ability  is  partly  born  and  partly  made.  Compared 
with  science,  inventive  genius  gains  a  foothold  on  the 
ladder  of  fame  late  in  life.  The  business  man  and  finan- 
cier, the  lawyer,  doctor,  and  minister,  must  often  enter 
their  profession  from  the  bottom,  and  almost  no  great 
inventor  is  below  forty.  For  woman,  however,  recogni- 
tion comes  earlier,  and  attractiveness  of  person  has  a 
greater  premium  here  than  with  her  brother.  Having 
outlived  her  youth,  however,  progress  is  harder. 

W.  A.  Newman  Borland  *  studied  the  histories  of 
four  hundred  great  men  of  modern  times  and  concluded 
that  they  refute  Osier's  theory,  the  large  majority  of 
them  being  still  active  at  sixty,  although  he  distinguishes 
between  workers  and  thinkers.  He  tells  us  that  only 
that  which  is  fittest  survives  and  almost  seems  to  imply 
that  man  became  man  when  he  was  able  to  live  and  work 
productively  after  40."  He  considers  old  age  one  of  the 
choicest  products  of  evolution.  His  painstaking  article 
is  divided  into  three  sections:  (i)  enumerating  the 
great  things  done  by  men  after  70;  (2)  by  those  between 
60  and  70;  (3)  by  those  between  50  and  60.  He  thinks 

'"Age  and  Eminence,"  Pop.  Set.  Mo.,  vol.  66,  1904-05,  p.  538. 

4  The  Age  of  Mental  Virility,  The  Century  Co.,  1908. 

•"What  the  World  Might  Have  Missed,"  Century,  1908,  p.  113,  et  seq.    » 

6 


THE  YOUTH  OF  OLD  AGE 

that  if  Osier's  dictum  has  any  validity,  it  is  found  among 
manual  laborers.  It  doubtless  had  its  influence  in  the 
practice  of  so  many  industries  that  employ  no  new  men 
above  the  age  of  40. 

E.  S.  P.  Haynes 6  resents  the  idea  that  people  should 
retire  from  public  affairs  at  forty,  although  he  recog- 
nizes that  near  this  age  in  both  men  and  women  there 
is  often  an  impatience  with  a  future  that  promises  to  be 
just  like  the  past  and  there  is  a  peculiar  liability  to 
amorous,  financial,  or  other  adventures.  If  people  do 
anything,  they  are  labeled  and  so  get  into  grooves,  and 
their  friends,  if  they  break  out  in  new  lines,  as  for 
example,  Ruskin  did,  are  shocked.  But  the  groove  is 
liable  to  grow  narrow,  and  when  this  is  realized,  abrupt 
changes  may  occur.  Nature  protests  against  decay  and 
hence  it  is  that  we  often  see  the  spectacle  of  impatient 
old  people  who  are  in  a  hurry,  due  perhaps  to  a  subcon- 
scious effort  to  feel  young  again.  This  is  akin  to  the 
"dangerous  age"  in  women.  Life  is  not  a  bed  of  roses 
for  those  who  have  succeeded,  for  it  is  sometimes  as 
difficult  to  retain  as  it  is  to  achieve  success.  Very  often 
our  ideas,  when  we  are  young,  are  ahead  of  our  age  but 
the  world  may  catch  up  with  us  in  middle  or  later  life. 
Very  often,  too,  by  ostentatiously  turning  their  backs 
upon  some  new  movement  the  old  thereby  compel  the 
young  to  take  it  up  in  order  to  deploy  themselves. 

In  this  connection  one  may  reflect,  with  Louise 
Creighton,  that  as  older  people  caused  the  late  war, 
while  the  younger  fought  it,  when  the  latter  came  home 
the  places  that  had  to  be  found  for  them  involved  a 
great  deal  of  displacement,  so  that  the  tension  between 
old  and  young  has  been  greatly  increased  since  the  close 
of  the  war.  We  also  recall  the  view  of  George  R.  Sims/ 
that  the  effect  of  the  war  upon  the  old  was  depressing 

*  "The  Age  Limit,"  Living  Age,  1914,  p.  214. 

T  "The  Old  Folks  and  the  War,"  Living  Age,  IQI& 


SENESCENCE 

because  they  felt  they  must  die  when  the  world  was  in 
darkness  and  without  realizing  the  prayer  of  Simeon. 
The  young  anticipated  the  harvests  of  peace,  but  for  the 
old  the  prospect  of  dying  before  this  harvest  was  gar- 
nered was  often  pathetic. 

Charles  W.  St.  John 8  resumes  the  experimental 
studies  of  Ranschenburg  and  Balint  which  show  that  all 
activities  of  judgment,  association,  etc.,  are  retarded, 
errors  increased,  and  ideas  impoverished  in  old  age. 
De  Fursac  tabs  the  traits  of  normal  senile  dementia  as 
(i)  impaired  attention  and  association;  (2)  inaccurate 
perception  of  the  external  world,  with  illusions  and  dis- 
orientation;  (3)  disordered  memory,  retrograde  am- 
nesia, and  perhaps  pseudo-reminiscence;  (4)  impover- 
ishment of  ideas;  (5)  loss  of  judgment;  (6)  loss  of 
aff ectivity,  along  with  morbid  irritability ;  and  (7)  autom- 
atism. There  may  be  ideas  of  persecution  or  delusions 
of  greatness.  Youthful  items  of  experience  hitherto 
only  in  the  fringe  of  consciousness  now  press  to  the 
center,  and  youthful  contents  are  revived.  There  is  a 
tendency  to  depart  from  inductive  procedure  toward 
a  priori  methods,  where  feelings  and  beliefs  are  criteria, 
and  especially,  as  Fechner  showed,  to  introversion. 
There  is  less  control  and  regression  first  shows  itself  in 
the  intellect,  which  is  last  to  develop. 

St.  John  proceeds  to  characterize  four  eminent  men 
who  underwent  more  or  less  radical  transformations  in 
the  early  stages  or  youth  of  old  age,  as  follows.  Tolstoy  * 
was  a  typical  convert.  He  witnessed  the  horror  of  his 
grandmother's  death,  which  profoundly  affected  all  his 
later  views.  When  he  was  about  twelve,  a  schoolmate 
told  him  that  there  was  no  God  and  that  all  thought 

'The  Psychology  of  Senescence,  Master's  Thesis,  Clark  University, 
Worcester,  Mass.,  1912. 

•P.  Birukoff,  Leo  Tolstoy,  His  Life  and  Work.  London,  1006;  A. 
Maude,  The  Life  of  Tolstoy,  London,  1908. 

8 


THE  YOUTH  OF  OLD  AGE 

about  Him  was  an  invention ;  and  he  accepted  this  news 
and  went  on  in  a  few  years  to  Nihilism.  In  later  life  he 
asked  himself  if  he  should  become  "more  famous  than 
Gogol,  Pushkin,  Shakespeare,  and  Moliere,  what  then  ?" 
and  he  could  not  answer.  The  ground  crumbled  under 
him.  There  was  no  reason  to  live.  Every  day  was 
bringing  him  nearer  to  the  precipice  and  yet  he  could  not 
stop.  He  felt  he  could  live  no  longer  and  the  idea  of 
suicide  as  a  last  resort  was  always  with  him  and  he  had 
to  practice  self-deception  to  escape  it.  Yet  he  had  a 
pagan  love  of  life.  He  found  his  status  summed  up  in 
an  Eastern  fable  of  a  traveler  who  is  attacked  by  a  wild 
beast  and  attempts  to  escape  by  letting  himself  down 
into  a  dried-up  well,  at  the  bottom  of  which  he  finds  a 
dragon,  and  so  is  forced  to  cling  to  a  wild  plant  that 
grows  on  the  wall.  Suddenly  he  sees  two  mice  (one 
black  and  one  white — day  and  night)  nibbling  the  plant 
from  which  he  hangs  and  in  despair  he  looks  about,  still 
with  a  faint  hope  of  escape.  On  the  leaves  of  this  wild 
plant  he  sees  a  few  drops  of  honey  and  even  with  fear 
at  his  heart  he  stretches  out  his  tongue  and  licks  them. 
Thus  the  dragon  of  death  inevitably  awaits  him,  while 
even  the  honey  he  tries  to  taste  no  longer  rejoices  him 
for  it  is  not  sweet.  "I  cannot  turn  my  eyes  from  the 
mice  or  the  dragon.  Both  are  no  fable." 

Thus  the  fear  of  death  which  had  long  haunted  him 
now  excluded  everything  else  and  he  was  in  despair.  He 
turned  to  the  working  people,  whom  he  had  always 
liked,  to  study  them  and  found  that  although  they  an- 
ticipated death  they  did  not  worry  about  it  but  had  a 
simple  faith  that  bridges  the  gulf  between  the  finite  and 
the  infinite,  although  they  held  much  he  could  not  accept. 
Thus  for  a  year  while  he  was  considering  whether  or 
not  to  kill  himself,  he  was  haunted  by  a  feeling  he  de- 
scribes as  searching  after  God,  not  with  his  reason  but 
with  his  feelings.  Kant  and  Schopenhauer  said  that 


SENESCENCE 

man  could  not  know  Him.  Tolstoy  at  first  feared  that 
these  experiences  presaged  his  own  mental  decline.  He 
had  joined  the  church  and  clung  to  orthodoxy  for  three 
years  but  in  the  end  left  and  was  later  excommunicated. 
He  became  a  peasant  and  finally  left  his  pleasant  home 
for  a  monastery,  and  as  the  church  had  failed  he  turned 
to  the  Gospels,  the  core  of  which  he  found  in  the  Sermon 
on  the  Mount.  Here  was  the  solution  of  his  problem. 
If  everyone  strives  for  self  there  is  no  happiness.  Nor 
is  there  any  love  of  family  and  friends  alone,  but  love 
must  extend  to  all  mankind  and  even  to  being,  and  this 
must  be  all-embracing.  No  doubt  of  immortality  can 
come  to  any  man  who  renounces  his  individual  happi- 
ness. Instead  of  God  he  now  worships  the  world-soul 
and  attains  the  goal  of  perfection  he  once  sought  in  self- 
development. 

Fechner,10  born  in  1801,  made  professor  of  physics  in 
1833,  turned  to  more  psychological  studies  in  1838.  He 
had  visual  troubles  and  could  not  work  without  ban- 
daging his  eyes,  lived  in  a  blue  room,  had  insomnia,  and 
seemed  about  to  die.  But  in  1843  he  improved  and  felt 
he  was  called  by  God  to  do  extraordinary  things,  pre- 
pared for  by  suffering.  His  philosophical  inclinations 
now  came  into  the  foreground.  He  was  on  the  way  to 
the  secret  of  the  universe.  He  believed  in  insight  rather 
than  induction,  and  this  was  in  the  decades  when  Ger- 
man philosophy  was  at  its  lowest  ebb.  So  his  works  fell 
dead.  Not  only  Buchner  and  Moleschott  but  Kant 
belonged  to  what  he  called  the  "night  side,"  for  the 
latter's  Ding-an-Sich  was  a  plot  to  banish  joy.  Fechner 
knew  no  epistemology  and  thought  we  could  come  into 
direct  contact  with  reality  itself.  Man  lives  three  times: 
once  before  birth  and  in  sleep;  second  alternating;  and 

"  W.  Wundt,  Gustav  Theodor  Fechner,  Leipzig,  1901 ;  K.  Lasswitz, 
Gustav  Theodor  Fechner,  Stuttgart,  1896;  G.  S.  Hall,  Founders  of  Modern 
Psychology,  New  York,  1907. 

IO 


THE  YOUTH  OF  OLD  AGE 

finally  in  death  comes  to  the  eternal  awakening.  The 
spirit  will  then  communicate  with  others  without  lan- 
guage and  all  the  dead  live  in  us  as  Christ  did  in  His 
followers.  The  earth  will  return  its  soul  to  the  sun. 
Visible  pnantoms  may  be  degenerate  souls.  In  his  Zend- 
avesta  (Living  Word)  he  gives  us  a  philosophy  that  he 
deems  Christian  and  that  really  sums  up  his  final  view 
of  things.  The  childish  view  is  nearest  right  and  the 
philosopher  only  reverts  to  it.  Fechner  died  November 
18,  1887,  at  the  age  of  eighty-six,  and  after  his  crisis 
was  really  more  poet  than  scientist. 

Auguste  Comte,  born  1798,  married  at  the  age  of 
twenty-seven  and  was  divorced  at  forty-four.  He  ex- 
perienced losses  by  the  failure  of  his  publisher  and  had 
his  first  crisis  when  he  was  forty.  He  met  Clotilde 
de  Vaux  when  he  was  forty-seven  but  she  died  a  year 
later.  He  then  became  the  high  priest  of  humanity, 
developing  his  Politique  Positive  and  a  new  religion. 
His  father,  a  government  official,  had  given  him  an  ex- 
cellent scientific  education,  but  during  his  early  years  his 
emotional  life  was  entirely  undeveloped  and  this  now 
took  the  ascendency.11 

Emanuel  Swedenborg  was  born  in  1688.  He  had  his 
first  vision  in  London  in  1745  at  the  age  of  57,  became  a 
seer  and  mystic,  and  changed  from  a  subjective  to  an 
objective  type  of  thought  and  developed  his  doctrine  of 
correspondencies.  The  change  was  due  to  overwork 
and  eye-strain,  as  was  the  case  with  Comte.12 

Giovanni  Segantini 13  affords  us  perhaps  the  very  best 

11  See  J.  Croley,  The  Love  Life  of  Auguste  Comte,  Modern  Thinker,  2d 
ed.,  1870;  also  J.  Mill,  Auguste  Comte  and  Positivism,  London,  1007,  5th 
ed. ;  also  A.  Poey,  The  Three  Mental  Crises  of  Auguste  Comte,  Modern 
Thinker,  2d  ed.,  London,  1870. 

MG.  Trobridge,  Emanuel  Swendenborg,  His  Life,  Teachings,  and  In- 
fluence, London,  1911;  also  B.  White  and  B.  Barrett,  Life  and  Writings  of 
Emanuel  Swedenborg,  1876;  also  J.  Wilkinson,  Emanuel  Swedenborg,  a, 
Biography,  Boston,  1849.  See  also  Emerson's  essay. 

11  See  Karl  Abraham's  work  of  this  title  (Leipzig,  1911),  based  on 
Seravia's  biography. 

II 


SENESCENCE 

picture  of  a  man  who  died  at  the  age  of  forty-three  of 
what  might  be  called  meridional  mental  fever.  His  life 
was  a  struggle  against  an  obsessive  death  thought  and  a 
compensatory  will-to-live.  His  first  painting,  at  the  age 
of  twelve,  was  of  a  child's  corpse,  which  he  tried  to  paint 
back  into  life.  Haunted  by  the  idealized  image  of  his 
mother,  who  died  when  he  was  very  young,  and  which 
he  fancied  he  at  length  found  in  a  peasant  girl  whom  he 
made  his  model  for  years,  this  life-affirming  motif  was 
always  in  conflict  with  the  thought  of  death,  which  in 
later  years  became  an  obsession.  His  struggle  for  sub- 
limation was  typified  by  his  removal  from  the  world  and 
retirement  to  a  high  Alpine  village  where  the  mountains, 
in  the  ideal  of  which  it  was  his  final  ambition  to  embody 
all  the  excelsior  motives  of  life,  so  drew  him  that  he  had 
a  passion  for  exploring  their  heights  and  once  slept  in 
the  snow,  to  the  permanent  impairment  of  his  health. 
He  had  several  narrow  escapes  from  death,  which  after- 
wards always  provoked  greater  activity.  He  painted  an 
upright  corpse,  the  fall  of  which  he  thought  (with  the 
characteristic  superstition  of  neurotics)  was  ominous. 
Death  became,  in  the  end,  his  muse  as  his  mother  had 
been  in  the  earlier  stages  of  his  development.  He 
seemed  fascinated  with  the  idea  of  anticipating  death  in 
every  way,  even  though  this  was  a  more  or  less  uncon- 
scious urge.  It  was  as  if  he  revolted  against  the  ordi- 
nary fate  of  man  to  await  its  gradual  approach  with  the 
soporific  agencies  that  old  age  normally  supplies,  and 
was  anxious  to  go  forth  and  meet  it  face  to  face  at  the 
very  summit  of  his  powers.  At  times  he  let  down  all 
precautions  and  took  great  risks,  so  characteristic  a 
result  of  acute  disappointments  or  of  general  disen- 
chantment with  life. 

He  seemed  to  revel  in  the  stimulus  of  the  hurry-up 
motive  that  so  often  supervenes,  but  far  more  slowly,  in 
those  who  realize  that  they  have  reached  the  zenith  of 

12 


THE  YOUTH  OF  OLD  AGE 

their  powers.  Love  of  his  mother  made  him  an  artist 
and  he  early  married  a  wife  who  was  the  mother-image, 
which  was  never  marred  by  any  childish  jealousy  of  his 
father,  of  whom  he  had  known  little,  but  was  sublimated 
into  love  of  mankind  and  even  of  animals.  But  his  later 
greater  love  of  death  obscured  the  mother  image  and 
even  overcame  his  passion  for  home,  which  he  had  ideal- 
ized, and  dominated  his  exquisite  feeling  for  and  wor- 
ship of  nature,  which  he  always  regarded  as  charged 
with  symbolic  meanings. 

At  a  crisis  in  the  early  thirties  a  prevalent  depressive 
mood  gave  way  to  the  joy  of  creation,  and  his  character 
and  the  method  of  his  art  seemed  to  undergo  a  trans- 
formation. His  resentment  at  his  own  fate  seemed  to 
vent  itself  in  the  desire  to  banish  if  not,  as  Abraham 
thinks,  to  punish  his  mother  by  representing  her  in 
scenes  of  exquisite  suffering;  and  when  at  the  age  of 
thirty-six  his  Alpinism  made  him  at  home  only  with  the 
mountains  the  break  with  his  past  life  became  more  and 
more  marked.  The  ordinary  vicissitudes  of  life  were 
not  sufficient  and  he  wished  to  gamble  not  with  the  mere 
abatement  or  reinforcement  of  life  but  with  life  and 
death  themselves.  Even  his  dreams  were  haunted  by  a 
thanatic  mood,  and  his  superstitions  were  such  that  they 
almost  made  life  itself  a  hateful  dream.  He  tells  us  of 
fancying  himself  sitting  in  a  retired  nook  that  was  at 
the  same  time- like  a  church,  when  a  strange  figure  stood 
before  him,  a  creature  of  dreadful  and  repulsive  form, 
with  white  gleaming  eyes  and  yellow  flesh  tone,  half 
cretin  and  half  death.  "I  rose,  and  with  impressive 
mien  ordered  it  away  after  it  had  ogled  me  sideways.  I 
followed  it  with  my  eye  into  the  darkest  corner  until  it 
had  vanished/'  And  this  vision  he  thought  ominous. 
When  he  turned  around  he  shuddered,  for  the  phantom 
was  again  before  him.  Then  he  arose  like  a  fury,  cursed 
and  threatened  it,  and  it  vanished  and  did  not  return, 

13 


SENESCENCE 

for  it  was  more  obedient  than  Foe's  Raven.  His  ambi- 
valent reaction  against  this  was  not  only  to  work  harder 
but  to  affirm  that  there  was  no  death  and  thus  to  revive 
much  of  the  earlier  religiosity  of  his  childhood.  One  of 
his  pictures  was  of  a  dying  consumptive  which  he  trans- 
formed into  one  of  blooming  life.  More  and  more  the 
death  thought  mastered  his  consciousness — almost  as 
much  as  it  did  the  soul  of  the  insane  painter,  Wertz — 
and  provoked  him  to  greater  enthusiasm  and  ever  longer 
and  more  arduous  programs  for  his  future  life.  But 
from  the  subconscious  he  was  always  hearing  more  and 
more  clearly  the  call  of  death,  for  which  his  deeper 
nature  seems  to  have  passionately  longed,  while  the 
opposite  will-to-live  became  more  and  more  impotent. 
All  his  prodigious  activity  in  later  life  seems  to  have 
been  thus  really  due  to  a  subdominant  will  to  die.  When  he 
fell  ill  for  the  first  time  in  his  life,  "the  dark  powers  of  his 
unconscious  nature  came  in  to  help  the  disease  and  make 
the  disintegrative  process  easier  and  to  invite  death," 
as  if  love  of  it  were  the  consummation  of  his  love  of  all 
things  that  lived,  and  the  latter  would  not  have  been 
complete  without  the  former. 

Another  case  of  a  genius  who  hurried  through  the 
table  d'hote  Nature  provides  and  left  the  table  sated  to 
repletion  when  her  regular  guests  were  but  half  through 
the  course  was  the  German  poet,  Lenau.1*  Born  in  1802, 
he  studied  philosophy,  law,  and  medicine  successively, 
sought  contact  with  primeval  nature  in  America  at 
thirty,  returned  to  find  himself  famous,  and,  after  a 
period  of  prolonged  chastity,  became  promptly  infected 
with  syphilis,  falling  a  victim  to  insanity  at  forty-two 
and  dying  of  progressive  paralysis  at  forty-eight.  Syph- 
ilis is  perhaps  the  most  psychalgic  of  all  diseases  that 
afflict  man,  for  it  not  only  poisons  the  arrows  of  love  and 

14  J.  Sadger,  Aus  dent  Liebeslebens  Nicolaus  Lenaus,  Leipzig,  1909,  96  p. 
See  also  his  biography  by  B.  E.  Castle. 

14 


THE  YOUTH  OF  OLD  AGE 

makes  its  ecstasy  exquisite  pain  but  weakens  all  the 
phyletic  instincts,  like  the  climacteric,  and  like  it  brings 
hyperindividuation  in  its  train.  He  knew  both  the  joys 
and  the  pains  of  life,  the  depths  of  misery  and  the 
heights  of  euphoria.  Eros  and  Thanatos  were  insep- 
arable in  his  soul,  and  both  had  their  raptures  and 
inspired  him  by  turns.  Amorousness  brought  acute  re- 
ligiosity, and  between  his  erotic  adventures  he  lapsed 
far  toward  the  negation  of  all  faiths  and  creeds.  When 
not  in  love  his  violin  was  treated  as  a  paramour,  and  he 
forgot  it  when  the  tender  passion  glowed  again  in  his 
soul.  I  doubt  if  any  poet  ever  had  a  truer  and  deeper  feel- 
ing for  nature  or  was  a  more  eloquent  interpreter  of  all 
her  moods  and  aspects.  He  exhausted  both  homo-  and 
heterosexual  experiences,  remaining  through  a  series 
of  love  affairs,  however,  true  to  his  Sophie,  who  was  like 
his  mother  and  with  whom  his  relations  were  pure  and 
whose  influence  was  beneficent.  Even  before  his  infec- 
tion megalomania  alternated  with  misanthropy,  and  he 
had  ail  the  fluctuations  of  mood  that  are  such  character- 
istic stigmata  of  hysteria.  Spells  of  lassitude  alternated 
with  Berserker  energy;  masochism  with  sadism;  ex- 
cesses, including  those  of  drink,  with  spells  of  depression. 
In  his  aggressive  moods  he  stormed  up  mountains,  which 
to  him  were  symbols  of  mental  elevation,  until  he  was 
completely  exhausted.  Sometimes  he  fancied  himself  a 
nobleman  or  even  a  monarch  and  always  strove  to  reduce 
all  about  him  to  servile  satellites.  The  Job-Faust-Man- 
fred motive  of  ten  took  possession  of  him,  and  sometimes 
he  played  his  violin  half  the  night,  dancing  in  rapt 
ecstasy  and  unable  to  keep  time.  In  his  periods  of  self- 
reproach  after  orgasms  of  ecstasy  he  became  ascetic. 
His  poetry  and  converse  were,  especially  for  such  a  man, 
singularly  pure.  He  said  he  carried  a  corpse  around 
within  him.  Most  insanities  are  only  an  exaggeration  or 
breaking  out  of  previous  traits,  and  this  was  exception- 

15 


SENESCENCE 

ally  so  in  his  case.  At  one  time  he  seemed  to  want  to 
break  with  all  his  old  and  to  find  a  new  set  of  friends. 

In  the  high  temperature  at  which  he  lived,  with  so  many 
impulses  that  were  either  frustrated  or  crucified,  always 
hot  with  love  or  its  ambivalent  hate,  he  died — not  like 
Segantini,  because  he  was  hypnotized  by  death  at  the 
very  acme  of  his  power  and  willed  it  actively,  though 
unconsciously,  as  surely  as  if  he  had  committed  suicide, 
but  he  rather  turned  to  it  from  sheer  repletion  of  life, 
most  of  the  experiences  of  which  he  had  exhausted.  It 
was  as  if  a  congeries  of  souls  took  possession  of  him  by 
turns,  so  that  in  middle  life  he  had  himself  already 
played  most  of  the  parts  in  the  drama  and  thus  knew  it 
far  more  exhaustively  than  those  who  lead  more  unitary 
lives,  however  prolonged  they  may  be.  He  was  by  no 
means  theoretically  a  miserabilist  or  even  a  pessimist  but 
was  simply  burned  out  (blase,  abgelebt).  As  if  to  an- 
ticipate the  Weltschmerz  that  his  diathesis  made  it  cer- 
tain would  later  become  acute,  his  passionate  love  for 
nature,  deep  and  insightful  as  it  was,  did  not  prove  an 
adequate  compensation,  and  we  cannot  but  wonder 
whether,  if  he  had  lived  more  normally  and  without 
infection  to  fourscore,  his  life  would  not  inevitably  have 
ended  with  the  same,  though  less  acute,  general  symp- 
toms. Yet  even  he  never  cursed  the  fate  that  brought 
him  into  life  or  inveighed  against  his  parentage.  His 
life  was  like  a  candle  in  the  wind  blown  every  way  by 
turns,  now  and  then  flaring  up  and  emitting  great  light 
and  heat,  now  almost  put  out,  smoking,  sputtering,  and 
malodorous  in  a  socket  like  a  blue  flame  just  before  its 
final  extinction. 

The  psychograph  of  the  poet  Heinrich  von  Kleist  (d. 
1811,  a.e.  34)  affords  another  example  of  a  genius  who 
died  of  premature  old  age  near  the  period  of  its  dawn  or 
at  the  critical  turn  of  the  tide."  In  the  University  his 

*  J.  Sadger  in  Grenzfragen  des  N erven  und  Seelenlebcns,  1910,  pp.  5-63. 

16 


THE  YOUTH  OF  OLD  AGE 

passion  for  omniscience  impelled  him  to  enroll  for  so 
many  and  diverse  courses  that  his  professors  protested. 
Later  he  actually  tried  eight  and  attempted  to  sample 
other  callings.  "He  would  have  liked  to  be  everything." 
In  the  space  of  fourteen  years  no  less  than  nine  women 
had  engaged  his  fancy,  although  none  had  made  a  deep 
or  lasting  impression.  He  had  also  a  veritable  Lust  for 
traveling  and  after  every  important  event  in  his  life 
resorted  to  this  kind  of  fugue  from  reality  to  lose  him- 
self in  new  scenes.  "There  is  nothing  consistent  in  me 
save  inconsistency."  His  demands  on  his  friends,  and 
also  his  ambitions,  knew  no  bounds.  He  would  "tear 
the  crown  from  Goethe's  brow."  He  felt  he  must  storm 
all  heights  and  do  it  now  or  never. 

He,  too,  was  bisexual  in  his  instincts.  He  glorified 
purity  and  sobriety  as  over-compensation  for  his  short- 
comings in  both  these  respects.  Much  as  he  did,  he  never 
could  complete  the  great  work  he  had  long  planned,  and 
despair  at  his  impotence  to  achieve  his  ambitions  made 
him  at  last  take  flight  to  insanity  as  a  refuge  and  finally 
to  joint  suicide  with  a  woman.  Late  in  life  he  lost  the 
power  to  distinguish  between  fact  and  fancy,  so  fully 
had  his  writing  become  a  surrogate  for  life.  Wagner 
said  that  if  life  were  as  full  as  we  wish  it  to  be,  there 
would  be  no  need  of  art,  and  von  Kleist's  biographer 
seems  to  doubt  whether  to  call  his  end  a  victory  or  a  sur- 
render. His  wooing  of  death  was  not,  like  Segantini's, 
a  continuation  and  consummation  of  the  thanatopsis 
mood  of  adolescence  but  was  rather  due  to  a  growing 
endogenous  lethargy  and  apathy.  He  lost  his  appetite 
for  life,  from  which  he  had  expected  more  than  it  has 
to  give  even  to  the  most  favored,  and  thus  at  the  critical 
age  when  men  are  prone  to  weigh  themselves  in  the  bal- 
ance, he  found  incompleteness  and  inferiority  both 
within  and  without  and  so  threw  himself  into  the  arms 
of  the  Great  Silencer.  Everything  conventional  had 

17 


SENESCENCE 

long  since  palled  upon  him.  "His  early  fixation  upon  an 
unattainable  goal  was  broken  down  and  he  pursued  the 
unattainable  until  he  fancied  he  found  it  in  death."  The 
outbreak  of  the  Franco-Prussian  War  seemed,  for  a 
time,  to  afford  him  an  outlet  for  his  pent-up  desires 
without  compelling  him  to  resort  to  illness. 

In  his  ground  motif  De  Maupassant 18  belongs  to  the 
same  category  as  Lenau  and  von  Kleist.  He  inherited 
neurotic  trends  from  both  parents  and  died  in  1893  at 
the  age  of  forty-three,  having  experienced  most  of  the 
episodes  of  life  and  during  his  twelve  productive  years 
written  fourteen  volumes  and  climbed  to  the  very  sum- 
mit of  the  French  Parnassus.  His  morbidity  was  partly 
congenital  and  partly  metasyphilitic.  Had  he  lived  his 
simple  life  in  his  Normandy  home,  instead  of  coming  to 
Paris,  he  might  have  survived  but  he  fell  a  victim  to 
narcotics,  ether,  hashish,  morphine,  cocaine,  Bacchus, 
and  Venus.  Like  so  many  great  men  afflicted  with  the 
same  disease,  his  symptoms  showed  many  marked  de- 
partures from  its  ordinary  course,  and  before  its  active 
stage  his  divarications  in  the  fields  of  various  abnormal 
symptom-groups  were  many.  His  passion  for  the  hor- 
rible is  perhaps  best  illustrated  in  his  shuddering 
"Horla." 

Gogol's  "  life  (d.  1852,  a.e.  43)  was  full  of  contra- 
dictory completeness  and  incompleteness.  He,  too, 
desired  not  only  to  touch  but  to  express  life  at  every 
point,  and  his  realism  was  in  fact  only  self-expression. 
He  lived  through  life  as  a  fiction  and  tried  to  cast  this 
fiction  into  the  mold  of  actuality.  He  was  a  failure  in 
nearly  every  department  of  life  he  tried  and  was  a  man 
whose  character  was  made  up  of  samples  of  every  type 
of  human  nature.  In  him  the  creative  impulse  was  not  a 

"G.  Vorberg,  Guy  de  Maupassant's  Krankhcit,  1908,  27  p. 
"Otto  Kaus,  Schriften  des  Vereins  freie  psychoanalytische  Forschung, 
No.  2,  1912,  81  p. 

18 


THE  YOUTH  OF  OLD  AGE 

retreat  from  life  but  was  an  attempt  to  make  a  bridge 
between  it  and  his  soul.  He  was  haunted  by  a  feeling  of 
inferiority  which  it  was  the  passion  of  his  life  to  over- 
come. When  his  aggressive  feelings  were  strongest,  he 
produced  most,  and  failed  as  actor,  teacher,  clerk,  and 
succeeded  as  poet  and  novelist  because  thus  he  could  best 
wreak  his  inmost  self  upon  expression.  He  was  finally 
obsessed  by  a  religious  mania,  became  a  mystic,  and 
sought  salvation  by  fasting  and  self-denial.  Fear  of 
death  was  a  life-long  obsession  and  he  strove  to  conquer 
both  love  and  death  together  by  seeking  and  defying  the 
latter.  He  decided  to  die  by  fasting  and  kneeling  before 
the  picture  of  the  Mother  of  God.  "Groaning  and  crying 
out  with  his  last  strength,  he  had  dragged  himzelf  to  the 
symbol  of  the  highest  feminine  completeness,  and  when 
he  found  the  'Glorious  Virgin*  of  his  dreams  his  dis- 
solution came."  In  his  last  moment  he  seems  to  have 
felt  that  he  had  overcome  both  death  and  woman,  but 
only  by  yielding  to  them,  and  believed  himself  to  be  a 
martyr.  It  was  the  difficulty  he  found  in  bridging  the 
chasm  between  his  solitary,  child-like  self  and  the  real 
world  that  made  him  a  great  creator  of  fiction,  a  prac- 
tical failure,  and  a  madman. 

J.  V.  von  Scheffel 18  exhibited  a  range  of  moods  from 
humor  and  jollity  to  melancholia,  and  showed  in  his 
poems  an  entire  absence  of  eroticism  which  was  more  or 
less  compensatory.  The  bisexual  instinct  (he  not  only 
looked  like  a  girl  but  sometimes  disguised  himself  in 
woman's  attire)  was  evoked  by  an  earnest  effort  to  see 
the  world  as  woman  did.  He  had  an  extraordinary 
variety  of  morbid  attacks,  hypochondria,  delusions, 
headaches,  morbid  fear  of  death,  anxiety,  nightmares, 
weeping,  etc.  Schurmann  even  goes  so  far  as  to  think 
that  a  cyclothymic  diathesis  or  a  tendency  to  periodic 

"P.  J.  Moebius,  Ueber  Scheffel's  Krankheit,  1907,  p.  40. 
19 


SENESCENCE 

attacks  of  various  psychic  morbidities  is  characteristic 
of  genius,  which  finds  occasional  relief  in  attacks  of 
insanity,  like  Cowper,  Rousseau,  Tasso,  Holderlin,  and 
many  others ;  and  ascribes  this  in  part  to  a  hunger  for  a 
life  larger  and  fuller  than  normality  or  sobriety  can 
afford.  This,  however,  is  forbidden  fruit,  for  nature 
punishes  the  enjoyment  of  it,  if  not  by  premature  death 
at  least  by  premature  satiety  with  life. 

John  Ruskin's  lifeline  had  marked  nodes,  the  chief  of 
which  may  be  characterized  as  follows.  Up  to  the  early 
forties  he  had  lived  and  written  under  the  dominant 
influence  of  his  father,  who  held  very  conservative  views 
of  religion ;  but  the  foundations  of  the  son's  faith  were 
shaken  a*:d  the  tenet  "which  had  held  the  hopes  and 
beliefs  of  his  youth  and  early  manhood  had  proved  too 
narrow.  He  was  stretching  forth  to  a  wider  and,  as  he 
felt,  a  nobler  conception  of  life  and  destiny,  but  the 
transition  was  through  much  travail  of  soul."  3  He 
wrote,  "It  is  a  difficult  thing  to  live  without  hope  of 
another  world  when  one  has  been  used  to  it  for  forty 
years.  But  by  how  much  the  more  difficult,  by  so  much 
it  makes  one  braver  and  stronger."  And  again,  "It  may 
be  much  nobler  to  hope  for  the  advance  of  the  human 
race  only  than  for  one's  own  immortality,  much  less 
selfish  to  look  upon  oneself  merely  as  a  leaf  on  a  tree 
than  as  an  independent  spirit,  but  it  is  much  less  pleas- 
ant." Cook  says  that  "he  had  been  brought  up  as  a  Bible 
Christian  in  the  strictest  school  of  literal  interpretation 
but  he  had  also  become  deeply  versed  in  some  branches 
of  natural  science,  and  the  truths  of  science  seemed 
inconsistent  with  a  literal  belief  in  the  Scriptures."  He 
had  been  much  influenced  by  Spurgeon,  whom  he  knew 
well  in  private  life,  but  made  no  secret  of  his  adhesion  to 
Colenso's  heresies. 

"E.  T.  Cook,  Life  of  John  Ruskin,  London,  igu,  voL  ii,  p.  19. 
20 


THE  YOUTH  OF  OLD  AGE 

No  one  understood  the  inmost  causes  of  his  muse  as 
he  grew  melancholic.  He  was  exhausted,  dyspeptic, 
wanted  to  reconstruct  society,  had  "the  soul  of  a  prophet 
consumed  with  wrath  against  a  wayward  and  perverse 
generation,"  but  also  the  heart  of  a  lover  of  his  fellow- 
men  filled  with  pity  for  the  miseries  and  follies  of  man- 
kind. His  mother  recognized  his  tendency  to  misan- 
thropy, and  only  at  forty-two  did  he  break  away  from 
parental  discipline.  "A  new  epoch  of  life  began  for  me 
in  this  wise,  that  my  father  and  mother  could  travel  with 
me  no  more,  but  Rose  [La  Touche,  the  young  girl  with 
whom  he  was  in  love  and  who  died  when  he  was  in  the 
early  fifties  and  left  him  forlorn]  in  heart  was  with  me 
always,  and  all  I  did  was  for  her  sake."  This  was  his 
first  "exile."  The  clouds  that  had  more  than  once  low- 
ered over  his  life  settled  in  old  age  and  he  died  in  1900 
at  the  age  of  eighty-one.  During  most  of  the  last  ten 
years  he  presented  one  of  the  saddest  of  all  the  spectacles 
of  old  age,  "dying  from  the  top  downward."  He  was 
apathetic,  monosyllabic,  could  write  little,  and  spoke 
less ;  and  but  for  the  kindly  ministrations  of  Mrs.  Severn 
and  the  thoughtfulness  of  Kate  Greenaway  almost 
nothing  either  in  Brantwood  or  the  great  world  without 
retained  interest  for  him. 

The  middle-age  crisis  in  Friedrich  Nietzsche's  life 
began  when  he  left  Bayreuth  in  August,  1876,  after  the 
performance  of  The  Ring  of  the  Niebelung.  He  was 
then  thirty-two  years  of  age.  Now  it  was  that  his  dis- 
enchantment with  Wagner,  whom  he  had  regarded  as  a 
superman  and  often  called  Jupiter,  "one  who  might  bring 
the  type  of  man  to  a  higher  degree  of  perfection,"  5 
began.  He  had  thought  Wagner  "near  to  the  divine," 
but  he  now  found  much  of  his  music  dull  and  recitative 
and  thought  that  in  Parsifal  he  had  violated  his  own 

90  Frau  Foerster-Nietzsche,  The  Life  of  Nietssche. 
21 


SENESCENCE 

atheism  as  a  concession  to  the  public ;  and  so  he  "refused 
to  recognize  a  genius  who  was  not  honest  with  himself." 
He  abhorred  Wagner's  new  "redemption  philosophy"  but 
for  months  and  years  could  not  bring  himself  to  an  open 
break  with  him  and  was  for  a  long  time  plunged  in  the 
depths  of  gloom.  He  now  became  truly  lonely  and  went 
through  a  complete  inner  revolution.  He  realized  that 
he  must  henceforth  stand  alone  and  work  out  the  prob- 
lem of  life  by  himself.  His  anxiety  as  to  how  the  ven- 
erable Wagner  would  receive  his  Human,  All  Too 
Human  was  pathetic.  When  he  found  he  could  not  pub- 
lish it  anonymously,  he  revised  and  toned  down  many  of 
his  criticisms;  and  deep,  indeed,  was  his  grief  when, 
despite  the  almost  fawning  letter  that  accompanied  a 
copy  of  his  book  to  Wagner,  the  latter  lacked  the  great- 
ness of  soul  to  understand  his  sincerity  and  broke  with 
him  forever.  At  the  same  time  he  was  emancipating  his 
thought  from  Schopenhauer,  who  had  hitherto  been  his 
sovereign  master  in  the  philosophic  field. 

Now  it  was  that  he  almost  completely  wrecked  his  life 
by  living  according  to  the  precepts  of  Cornaro,  and  his 
letters  show  the  intense  struggle  with  which  he  finally 
resolved  to  find  his  own  way  through  life  and  to  abandon 
his  soul  to  self-expression.  He  finally  resigned  his  chair 
of  classic  literature  at  Bale  and  a  little  later  sorted  his 
manuscripts  and  commissioned  his  sister  to  burn  half  of 
them.  This  she  refused  to  do,  and  it  was  just  these  that 
were  the  basis  of  some  of  the  best  things  he  wrote  later. 
After  trying  residence  in  many  places  and  various  cures, 
and  experimenting  with  many  regimens,  he  finally  re- 
solved to  become  his  own  doctor,  and  it  was  by  his  own 
efforts  that  he  succeeded  in  prolonging  the  efficient 
period  of  his  life.  But  he  felt  he  had  at  last  struck  the 
right  road  in  The  Dawn  of  Day,  which  marked  the 
opening  of  his  campaign  against  popular  morality. 
From  this  time  on,  too,  he  had  a  deep,  new,  intense  love 

22 


THE  YOUTH  OF  OLD  AGE 

of  nature  and  was  inspired  henceforth  by  the  conviction 
that  he  must  be  the  midwife  of  the  superman  in  the 
world.  This  apostle  of  a  "New  Renaissance"  was  not 
unlike  his  Zarathustra,  who  retired  to  the  mountains  at 
thirty  and  at  forty  came  down  to  the  haunts  of  men  with 
a  new  message  for  them. 

The  theme  of  Rostand's  Chanticleer  is  the  disillusion 
of  that  gorgeous  barnyard  fowl  from  the  fond  and  at 
first  secret  conviction,  which  he  later  confessed  to  the 
pheasant  hen,  that  it  was  his  crowing  that  brought  in 
the  dawn  and  that  if  he  failed  in  this  function  the  world 
would  lie  in  darkness.  The  tragedy  of  the  play  is  the 
slow  conviction  that  the  sun  could  rise  without  him.  In 
Nietzsche  we  see  the  exact  reverse  of  this  process.  His 
delusions  of  greatness  grew  with  years  and  eventually 
passed  all  bounds  of  sanity.  He  became  jealous  of  Jesus 
and  came  to  believe  that  he  had  brought  the  world  a  new 
dispensation  and  that  his  own  work  would  some  time  be 
recognized  as  the  dawn  of  a  new  era. 

Robert  Raymond 21  thinks  it  is  pleasant  to  lie  at  anchor 
a  while  in  port  before  setting  sail  for  the  last  long  voyage 
to  the  unknown.  The  passage  from  late  youth  to  middle 
age  has  many  of  the  same  traits  as  growing  old.  We 
suddenly  realize,  perhaps  in  a  flash,  that  life  is  no  longer 
all  before  us.  When  youth  begins  to  die  it  fights  and 
struggles.  The  panic  is  not  so  much  that  we  cannot  do 
handsprings,  but  we  have  to  compromise  with  our  youth- 
ful hopes.  We  have  been  out  of  college  perhaps  twenty 
years.  Napoleon  lost  Waterloo  at  45,  Dickens  had  writ- 
ten all  his  best  at  40,  and  Pepys  finished  his  diary  at  37. 
We  lose  the  sense  of  superfluous  time  and  must  hurry. 
We  feel  the  futility  of  postponements  and  accept  the 
philosophy  of  the  second  best  as  not  so  bad.  We  become 
more  tolerant  toward  others  and  perhaps  toward  our- 

*  "On  Growing  Old,"  Allan.,  1915,  p.  803. 

33 


SENESCENCE 

selves.  We  must  not  be  too  serious  or  yearn  too  much 
for  a  lost  youth.  It  is  like  the  first  anticipations  of  fall 
in  the  summer. 

F.  von  Mueller  of  Munich  "  says  that  we  can  never  tell 
when  old  age  begins.  Involution  is  closely  connected 
with  evolution  from  the  start.  The  lymphatics,  tonsils, 
and  thymus  begin  to  atrophy  as  soon  as  the  development 
of  the  sex  organs  comes.  Among  English  button  workers 
it  was  found  that  young  men  did  most;  between  the 
ages  of  40  and  45  they  did  80  per  cent  of  the  work  they 
formerly  did;  60  per  cent  in  the  fifty-fifth  year,  and  40 
per  cent  after  sixty-five.  The  power  of  observation  is 
so  great  in  youth  that  seventy  per  cent  of  all  our  acquisi- 
tions are  made  at  this  stage.  Originality  comes  later. 
Age  is  more  serious.  There  is  less  adaptation  because 
habit  is  growing  rigid.  The  emotional  life  stiffens  and 
the  intellectual  narrows.  There  are  more  doubts.  There 
is  a  stronger-felt  need  of  recognition  from  others  that  is 
very  deeply  experienced  in  many  ways.  The  capacity 
for  producing  original  ideas  comes  latest  of  all.  It  is 
generally  thought  that  the  highest  physical  development 
is  before  30.  Some  investigators  think  that  physical 
deterioration  begins  with  the  brain  but  this  is  doubtful. 

Bruce  Birch 28  thinks  the  wreckage  of  youth  spectac- 
ular;  that  of  old  age  less  discernible  because  more  subtle 
and  internal.  The  old  should  come  to  the  fullest  possible 
maturity.  Youth  must  be  served.  The  church  focuses 
on  young  men.  The  old  age  here  chiefly  regarded  is 
from  forty-five  on.  Most  lack  intelligent  encourage- 
ment to  go  on.  They  are  thought  too  old  to  need  advice 
and  to  only  want  comfort.  Habits  are  supposed  to  be 
formed.  The  old  are  not  thought  to  be  heart-searchers. 

The  fact  is,   senescence  has  very  new  and  great 

*  "Concerning  Age,"  Set.  Amer.  Sup.,  Nov.  15,  1919. 
""The  Moral  and  Religious  Psychology  of  Late  Senescence,"  Biblical 
World,  1918,  p.  75- 


THE  YOUTH  OF  OLD  AGE 

temptations,  namely,  to  go  on  in  the  old  way  of  habit  and 
belief.  The  temptations  of  the  old  are  largely  of  the 
spirit  but  sometimes  also  of  the  flesh  and  the  devil.  It 
is  hard  to  keep  up  the  struggle  for  personal  righteous- 
ness and  there  are  periods  ol+Suorm  and  stress.  The 
church  has  not  done  its  duty  here.  Wost  think  the  most 
dangerous  period  is  that  of  wild  oats — between  16  and 
26 — but  this  writer  says  it  is  between  45  and  65  when 
there  is  the  most  wreckage. 

1.  There  is  a  tendency  to  low  ideals.    Youth  tends  to 
lofty  ideals  and  to  realize  them,  but  now  hope  often  fails. 
With  the  abbreviation  of  life  there  is  loss  of  initiative, 
perhaps  sickness  of  hope  deferred.    Age  thinks  it  has 
become  all  it  can  hope  to  be;  so  enthusiasm  wanes  and 
the  tedium  vitae  makes  us  feel  the  game  is  not  worth  the 
candle  and  we  are  not  willing  to  pay  the  price  of  sacri- 
fice and  struggle  to  maintain  high  ideals.     So  we  aim 
lower.    The  excelsior  motive  is  lost.    So  there  is  often 
a  degeneration  of  moral  character.     Cheap  pleasures 
satisfy — perhaps  even  those  of  the  table,  for  this  is  the 
easiest  way  of  reviving  some  of  the  tendencies  of  former 
life. 

2.  Hence  lowering  and  liberalizing  of  conduct  creeds. 
The  frontal  lobes  shrink  as  the  period  of  endeavor 
wanes.    The  edge  of  desire  is  dulled  and  so  is  the  power 
to  distinguish  right  and  wrong,  true  and  false.    "Twice 
a  child,  once  a  man."    The  powers  of  imagination,  ag- 
gression, and  resistant  effort  flag,  and  we  are  content 
with  the  beaten  path  because  the  motor  areas  have 
decayed.    There  is  ruttiness,  the  brain  is  set  for  habitual 
reactions,  there  are  fixed  points  of  view,  the  appercep- 
tive  mass  is  allowed  to  interpret  all  new  ideas,  and  these 
cannot  change  it.    Thus  it  is  hard  to  adjust  to  progress. 
There  is  less  resistance,  self-control,  courage  for  great 
deeds  and  high  purposes,  less  tendency  to  ask  advice  of 
and  be  influenced  by  younger  men.     Politicians  often 

25 


SENESCENCE 

recognize  this  in  putting  forward  respectable  elderly, 
pliant  candidates.  One  is  often  weak  where  he  thinks 
himself  strong  because  there  is  no  fool  like  an  old  one. 
He  may  yield  to  selfishness,  acquisitiveness,  curiosity, 
secretiveness,  envy,  jeuldusy,  avarice,  and  other  primi- 
tive traits.  Ther^vs  too  frequent  moral  collapse  here. 

3.  There  is  a  'lessening  of  emotional  intensity  or 
stodginess.    Tne  imitative,  religious,  adventurous,  bel- 
ligerent,  imaginative,   initiative   traits   are   developed 
early,  and  the  younger  man  is  the  greater  in  the  do- 
minion of  the  emotions.    But  later  poets  turn  to  prose 
and  others  to  more  didactic  activities.     Scientists,  phi- 
losophers, and  statesmen  are  best  when  they  are  through 
this  period.     Disappointed  men  now  become  cynical, 
morose,  petulant,  or  vicious  as  the  intellect  only  rules. 
If  the  social  and  gregarious  instinct  fails,  society  may 
bore,  friendships  decline,  and  age  may  be  lonely.    Or, 
again,  it  may  fall  a  prey  to  many  dispositional,  emo- 
tional, and  obsessive  feelings  which  may  become  insane. 
The  patient  may  live  in  a  logic-tight  compartment.    The 
obsession  may  be  a  hobby  or  a  system  of  connected  ideas 
with  a  strong  emotional  tone  (complex).     These  are 
tendencies  arising  from  instinct.    When  the  social  and 
sane  instincts  lose  in  the  conflict,  interest  in  the  present 
may  decline  to  indifference,  and  the  obsessions  may 
focus  on  real  or  fancied  errors  of  the  past — duty  to  a 
dead  child,  a  business  failure,  etc.    At  any  rate,  there  is 
a  tendency  to  indulge  temperament. 

4.  Failure  in  religious  teaching.     Versus  "Be  sure 
your  sin  will  find  you  out"  all  the  old  realize  that  they 
have  done  much  sin  that  is  not  found  out  and  which,  if 
it  were  exposed,  would  bring  suffering,  disgrace,  public 
execration,  and  loss  of  vocation,  property  and  friends. 
To  fear  only  the  consequences  of  evil  is  bad,  and  since 
they  have  escaped  they  feel  a  certain  contempt  of  secular 
and  moral  law  and  take  greater  risks.    The  old  man  pre- 
26 


THE  YOUTH  OF  OLD  AGE 

fers  to  be  respectable  and  righteous,  but  he  does  not  care 
if  his  unrighteousness  is  known  or  suspected  if  it  is  not 
made  too  public.  Thus  the  old  dread  exposure  more 
than  they  do  sin. 

5.  The  church  offers  too  little  to  the  old  but  wants  to 
see  old  age  tap  new  reservoirs  of  energy,  vigor,  joy,  and 
enthusiasm.  The  best  it  can  offer  is  faith  in  Jesus. 
Many  would  say  it  offers  a  larger  intellectual  view. 

Karin  Michaelis  24  tells  her  story  in  the  form  of  letters 
and  a  running  journal.  A  poor  girl,  she  early  came  to 
feel  that  with  her  beauty  she  could  do  anything  and 
supremely  longed  for  wealth.  After  just  escaping  mar- 
riage with  a  rich  old  man  who  educated  her,  she  married 
a  wealthy  and  most  exemplary  husband  whom  she 
divorced,  after  having  lived  tranquilly  with  him  for  a 
score  of  years,  with  no  cause  on  either  side  but  because 
she  felt  a  growing  passion  for  solitude.  She  retired  to 
a  desert  island  in  a  spacious  new  villa  planned  by  an 
architect  friend  eight  years  younger  than  herself.  After 
a  year  of  isolation,  slowly  realizing  that  she  is  in  love 
with  the  architect,  as  she  had  long  been,  she  offers  her- 
self to  him  on  any  terms  and  is  rejected.  She  then  pro- 
poses to  rejoin  her  husband  but  finds  him  engaged  to  a 
girl  of  nineteen. 

The  remarkable  merit  of  this  book  that  made  it  some- 
thing of  a  sensation  through  all  western  Europe  ten 
years  ago  is  the  masterly  descriptions  of  the  state  of 
mind  of  women  of  a  certain  type,  and  perhaps  to  some 
extent  of  all,  at  the  turn  of  life.  While  there  is  not  a 
phrase  in  it  that  could  shock  the  most  fastidious,  it  is 
evident  throughout  that  the  author's  soul  is  permeated 
with  a  sex  consciousness  that  finds  numberless  indirect 
expressions  and  that  she  knows  life  and  man  chiefly 
from  this  standpoint,  condones  most  of  woman's  errors, 

34  The  Dangerous  Age,  London,  1912. 
27 


SENESCENCE 

advises  her  friends  to  courses  that  convention  forbids, 
etc.  No  one  ever  began  to  write  such  a  book,  not  even 
Octave  Feuillet  in  his  La  Crise.  It  all  reads  like  a  mar- 
velous confession  of  things  no  woman  ever  said  before 
or  could  say  to  a  man.  She  says : 

Somebody  should  found  a  vast  and  charitable  sisterhood  for 
women  between  forty  and  fifty,  a  kind  of  refuge  for  the  victims 
of  the  years  of  transition,  for  during  that  time  women  would  be 
happier  in  voluntary  exile  or  at  any  rate  entirely  separated  from 
the  other  sex.  .  .  .  We  are  all  more  or  less  mad,  even  though  we 
struggle  to  make  others  think  us  sane. 

There  are  moments  when  I  envy  every  living  creature  who  has 
the  right  to  pair — either  from  hate  or  from  habit.  I  am  alone 
and  shut  out. 

Women's  doctors  may  be  as  clever  and  sly  as  they  please  but  they 
will  never  learn  any  of  the  things  women  confide  to  each  other.  Be- 
tween the  sexes  there  lies  not  only  a  deep,  eternal  hostility  but  the 
involuntary  abyss  of  a  complete  lack  of  reciprocal  comprehension. 

It  would  be  better  for  woman  if  she  walked  barefoot  over  red- 
hot  ploughshares  for  the  pain  she  would  suffer  would  be  slight, 
indeed,  compared  to  that  which  she  must  feel  when,  with  a  smile 
on  her  lips,  she  leaves  her  own  youth  behind  and  enters  the  region 
of  despair  we  call  growing  old. 

It  may  safely  be  said  that  on  the  whole  surface  of  the  earth 
not  one  man  exists  who  really  knows  woman.  If  a  woman  took 
infinite  pains  to  reveal  herself  to  a  husband  or  a  lover  just  as  she 
really  is,  he  would  think  she  was  suffering  from  some  incurable 
mental  disease.  A  few  of  us  indicate  our  true  natures  in  hysterical 
outbreaks,  fits  of  bitterness  and  suspicion,  but  this  involuntary 
frankness  is  generally  discounted  by  some  subtle  deceit. 

If  men  suspected  what  took  place  in  a  woman's  inner  life  after 
forty,  they  would  avoid  us  like  the  plague  or  knock  us  in  the 
head  like  mad  dogs. 

Are  there  honest  women?  At  least  we  believe  there  are.  It 
is  a  necessary  part  of  our  belief.  Who  does  not  think  well  of 
mother  or  sister,  but  who  believes  entirely  in  a  mother  or  sister  ? 
Absolutely  and  unconditionally  ?  Who  has  never  caught  mother 
or  sister  in  a  falsehood  or  a  subterfuge  ?  Who  has  not  sometimes 
seen  in  the  heart  of  mother  or  sister,  as  by  a  lightning  flash,  an 
abyss  which  the  boundless  love  cannot  bridge  over?  Who  was 
ever  really  understood  by  mother  or  sister? 

28 


THE  YOUTH  OF  OLD  AGE 

I  envy  every  country  wench  or  servant  girl  who  goes  off  with 
her  lover  while  I  sit  here  waiting  for  old  age.25 

The  author  has  been  spoken  of  as  a  traitor  to  her  sex, 
revealing  all  its  freemasonry.  Certainly  no  female  writer 
ever  emancipated  herself  more  completely  from  man's 
point  of  view.  There  is  no  masculine  note  here.  It 
would  seem  as  if  she  aspired  to  be  a  specialist  in  fem- 
inine psychology.  M.  Prevost  calls  it  a  cinematograph 
of  feminine  thought  set  down  without  interposing  be- 
tween the  author's  mind  and  the  paper  the  vision  of  a 
man.  No  extracts  or  epitome  can  do  justice  to  the  pre- 
cision of  style,  the  acuteness  of  self-observation,  the 
range  of  social  experience,  and  the  depth  of  insight  here 
shown  in  depicting  the  psychological  processes  that  at- 
tend the  beginnings  of  old  age  in  women. 

It  is  well  at  any  stage  of  life,  and  particularly  at  its 
noonday,  to  pause  and  ask  ourselves  what  kind  of  old 
people  we  would  like,  and  also  are  likely,  to  be — two  very 
different  questions.  In  youth  we  have  ideals  of  and  fit 
for  maturity.  Why  not  do  the  same  when  we  are 
mature  for  the  next  stage  ?  Why  should  not  forty  plan 
for  eighty  (or  at  least  for  sixty)  just  as  intently  as 
twenty  does  for  forty?  At  forty  old  age  is  in  its  in- 
fancy; the  fifties  are  its  boyhood,  the  sixties  its  youth, 
and  at  seventy  it  attains  its  majority.  Woman  passes 
through  the  same  stages  as  man,  only  the  first  comes 
earlier  and  the  last  later  for  her.  If  and  so  far  as  Osier 
is  right,  it  is  because  man  up  to  the  present  has  been 
abnormally  precocious,  a  trait  that  he  inherited  from  his 
shorter-lived  precursors  and  has  not  yet  outgrown,  as  is 
the  case  with  sexual  precocity,  which  brings  premature 
age.  Modern  man  was  not  meant  to  do  his  best  work 
before  forty  but  is  by  nature,  and  is  becoming  more  and 
more  so,  an  afternoon  and  evening  worker.  The  coming 
superman  will  begin,  not  end,  his  real  activity  with  the 

38  See  W.  L.  Comfort's  Midstream  for  the  same  crisis  in  men  (1914). 
29 


SENESCENCE 

advent  of  the  fourth  decade.  Not  only  with  many  per- 
sonal questions  but  with  most  of  the  harder  and  more 
complex  problems  that  affect  humanity  we  rarely  come 
to  anything  like  a  masterly  grip  till  the  shadows  begin 
to  slant  eastward,  and  for  a  season,  which  varies  greatly 
with  individuals,  our  powers  increase  as  the  shadows 
lengthen.  Thus  as  the  world  grows  intricate  and  the 
stage  of  apprenticeship  necessarily  lengthens  it  becomes 
increasingly  necessary  to  conserve  all  those  higher 
powers  of  man  that  culminate  late,  and  it  is  just  these 
that  our  civilization,  that  brings  such  excessive  strains 
to  middle  life,  now  so  tends  to  dwarf,  making  old  age  too 
often  blase  and  abgelebt,  like  the  middle  age  of  those 
roues  who  in  youth  have  lived  too  fast. 

There  are  many  who  now  think  more  or  less  as  does 
H.  G.  Wells  2a  that  the  human  race  is  just  at  its  danger- 
ous age  and  has,  within  the  last  few  years,  passed  its 
prime ;  also  that  henceforth  we  must  trust  less  to  nature 
and  place  all  our  hope  in  and  direct  all  our  energy  to 
nurture  if  the  race  is  to  escape  premature  decay.  There 
is  only  too  much  to  indicate  that  mankind,  in  Europe  at 
least  if  not  throughout  the  world,  has  reached  the  "dan- 
gerous age"  that  marks  the  dawn  of  senescence  and  that, 
unless  we  can  develop  what  Renan  calls  "a  new  enthu- 
siasm for  humanity,"  a  new  social  consciousness,  and  a 
new  instinct  for  service  and  for  posterity,  our  elaborate 
civilization  with  all  its  institutions  will  become  a  Frank- 
enstein monster  escaping  the  control  of  the  being  that 
devised  and  constructed  it  and  will  bring  ruin  to  both 
him  and  to  itself.  Progressive  eugenics,  radical  and 
world-wide  reeducation,  and  the  development  of  a 
richer,  riper  old  age,  are  our  only  sources  of  hope  for 
we  can  look  to  no  others  to  arrest  the  degenerative 
processes  of  national  and  individual  egoism.  At  any 

*The  Salvaging  of  Civilisation:  The  Probable  Future  of  Mankind 
New  York,  1921.  199  p. 

30 


THE  YOUTH  OF  OLD  AGE 

rate,  we  have  to  face  a  new  problem,  namely  what  is  the 
old  age  of  the  world  to  be  and  how  can  we  best  prepare 
for  it  betimes  ? 

As  contrasted  with  Ireland,  in  which  Ross  27  tells  us 
"one-eighth  of  her  people  are  more  than  sixty-five  years 
old,"  we  have  considered  ourselves  as  par  excellence  the 
land  of  young  people  and  ideas.  Our  growth  has  been 
phenomenal  and  began  and  proceeded  most  opportunely, 
so  that  we  profited  to  the  full  by  steam,  rapid  transporta- 
tion, invention,  by  our  coal,  oil,  forests,  and  virgin  soil, 
and  especially  by  the  ideals  of  liberty  that  were  brought 
here  by  the  first  waves  of  immigrants  to  our  shores. 
These  were  followed  later,  however,  by  those  who  had 
failed  in  the  old  world,  by  inferior  and  often  Mediter- 
ranean stocks  imported  as  tools  or  coming  only  in  the 
hope  of  gain ;  but  even  this  tide  is  now  ceasing  to  flow. 
We  are  within  measurable  distance  of  the  limits  of  our 
natural  resources.  Although  the  great  war,  the  most 
stupendous,  was  also  the  most  inconclusive  ever  fought, 
and  although  we  reached  our  pinnacle  in  the  idealism  of 
Wilson's  first  visit  to  Europe,  when  the  world  came 
nearer  than  ever  before  since  early  Christianity,  the 
Holy  Roman  Empire,  and  Comenius,  to  a  merger  of 
national  sovereignty  and  a  new  world  law  backed  by  a 
new  world  power,  this  brief  vision  of  a  federated  world 
has  faded  and  we  now  realize  that  if  we  cannot  make  a 
break  with  history  and  leave  much  of  it  to  the  dead  past, 
if  we  cannot  transcend  the  boundaries  that,  especially  in 
Europe,  are  now  far  too  narrow  for  modern  conditions, 
and  if  we  cannot  fearlessly  enter  upon  the  longer  ap- 
prenticeship to  life,  which  is  now  too  short  for  mastery, 
we  shall  drift  into  far  more  disastrous  wars  that  will 
leave  even  the  victors  exhausted,  and  mankind  will 
either  sink  into  an  impotent  senility  or  into  a  Tar- 
zan  bestialism,  which  from  the  standpoint  of  Clarence 
Day  (The  Simian  World}  would  seem  not  impossible. 

*  The  Old  World  in  the  New,  1914,  p.  27. 
31 


CHAPTER  II 

THE  HISTORY  OF  OLD  AGE 

The  age  of  plants  and  animals — The  Old  Stone  Age — Treatment  of  old 
age  among  existing  savage  tribes — The  views  of  Frazer — The  ancient 
Hebrews  and  the  Old  Testament— The  Greeks  (including  Sparta,  the 
Homeric  Age,  the  status  of  the  old  in  Athens,  the  views  of  Plato, 
Socrates'  talks  with  boys,  Aristotle)— The  Romans— The  Middle  Ages- 
Witchcraft  and  old  women — Attitude  of  children  toward  the  old— 
Mantegazza's  collection  of  favorable  and  unfavorable  views  A  age — 
The  division  of  life  into  stages — The  relation  of  age  groups  to  social 
strata — The  religion  of  different  ages  of  life — The  Vedanta— The 
Freudian  war  between  the  old  and  the  young— History  of  views  from 
Cornaro  to  our  own  time — Bacon— Addison — Burton — Swift. 

SOME  plants  live  only  a  few  hours ;  others,  a  few  days ; 
and  very  many  only  for  a  season.  But  trees  are  the 
oldest  of  all  things  that  live.  In  the  Canary  Islands  is 
an  immense  dragon  tree,  forty-five  feet  in  circumfer- 
ence, which  grows  very  slowly.  This  was  vital  enough 
to  continue  living  fifty  years  after  a  third  of  it  was 
destroyed.  It  must  have  been  several  thousand  years 
old,  but  as  its  trunk  was  hollowed  there  was  no  way  of 
ascertaining  its  age.  In  the  Cape  Verde  Islands  stood 
a  tree  thirty  feet  in  diameter  which  Adanson  estimated 
to  be  5,150  years  of  age.  Some  of  the  old  cypresses  in 
Mexico  are  thought  to  be  quite  as  old.  The  big  trees  of 
California  are  several  thousand  years  old,  the  largest  of 
which  Sargent  estimates  to  have  lived  5,000  years.  We 
have  all  seen  cross-sections  of  the  trunks  of  these  mon- 
sters of  the  vegetable  world  with  their  concentric  rings 
marked — "this  growth  was  made  during  the  year  the 
Magna  Charta  was  granted,"  "this  when  Christ  was 
born,"  etc.  Many  botanists  believe  that  trees  of  this  sort 

32 


THE  HISTORY  OF  OLD  AGE 

do  not  die  of  old  age  as  such,  but  of  external  accidents 
like  lightning,  tempests,  etc. 

As  to  animal  longevity,  no  doubt  there  are  real 
ephemerids.  Life  can  also  be  prolonged  by  desiccation 
or  by  freezing.  Certain  it  is  that  many  species  do  not 
live  to  see  their  offspring.  In  many  of  the  lower  forms 
of  life  the  larval  is  far  longer  than  the  adult  stage.  The 
seventeen-year  locust,  for  example,  lives  out  most  of  its 
time  underground,  the  imago  form  continuing  but  little 
more  than  a  month.  Most  butterflies  are  annual,  al- 
though those  that  fail  to  copulate  may  hibernate  and  live 
through  another  season,  while  some  are  known  to  have 
lived  several  years.  Worker  bees  do  not  survive  the 
season  but  queens  live  from  two  to  five  years.  J.  H. 
Gurney  *  thinks  the  passerines  are  the  shortest-lived  birds, 
averaging  from  eight  to  nine  years,  that  the  lark,  canary, 
bullfinch,  gull,  may  live  forty  years,  the  goose  fifty,  and 
the  parrot  sixty.  To  the  latter  bird  a  mythical  longevity 
is  often  assigned,  one  being  said  to  have  spoken  a  lan- 
guage that  had  become  extinct.  As  to  animals,  domesti- 
cation prolongs  while  captivity  shortens  their  normal 
length  of  life.  Longevity  is  often  related  to  fertility. 
Beasts  of  prey  breed  slowly  and  live  to  be  old,  while  the 
fecund  rabbit  is  short-lived.  But  for  increased  fecundity 
species  subject  to  high  risk  would  die  out.  While  there 
is  a  certain  correlation  between  size  and  age,  since  large 
animals  require  more  time  to  grow,  it  is  extremely  lim- 
ited. Bunge  thinks  that  in  mammals  the  period  the  new- 
born take  to  double  in  size  is  an  index  of  the  normal 
duration  of  life;  but  this,  too,  has  its  limitations.  Some 
stress  diet  as  an  essential  factor  and  others  think  that 
length  of  life  may  be  inversely  as  the  reproductive  tax 
levied  upon  the  system.  But  of  all  these  questions  our 
knowledge  is  still  very  limited. 

1  The  Longevity  of  Birds. 

33 


SENESCENCE 

When  Alexander  conquered  India,  he  took  one  of 
King  Porus's  largest  elephants,  Ajax,  and  labeled  it, 
"Alexander,  the  son  of  Jupiter,  dedicates  this  to  the 
sun."  This  elephant  is  said  to  have  been  found  160 
years  later.  This  is  the  earliest  record  I  find  of  animal 
longevity.  We  have  many  tables  since  Flourens  at- 
tempted, with  great  pains,  to  construct  one,  and  from 
the  latest  of  these  at  hand  I  select  the  following  of  those 
animals  popularly  supposed  to  be  able  to  attain  one  hun- 
dred years  or  more:  carp,  100  to  150;  crocodile,  100; 
crow,  100;  eagle,  100;  elephant,  150  to  200;  parrot,  100; 
pike,  100;  raven,  100;  swan,  100;  tortoise,  over  100. 
In  point  of  fact,  as  E.  Ray  Lankester z  says,  we  know 
almost  nothing  definite  of  the  length  of  life  of  larger 
animals.  Flourens  considered  that  in  mammalia  we 
could  find  a  criterion  of  the  end  of  the  growth  period  in 
the  union  of  the  epiphyses  of  the  bones  throughout  the 
skeleton,  and  laid  down  the  law  that  for  both  mammals 
and  man  longevity  is,  on  the  average,  about  five  times 
that  of  this  period  of  growth.  We  know  far  more  as  to 
the  span  of  the  shorter-  than  of  the  longer-lived  mem- 
bers of  the  brute  creation.  We  also  know  far  more  of 
domestic  animals  than  of  their  wild  congeners.  The 
former  doubtless  have  lived  longer  because  better  pro- 
tected. Darwin  wrote  that  he  had  no  information  in 
regard  to  the  longevity  of  the  nearest  wild  represent- 
atives of  our  domestic  animals  or  even  of  quadrupeds  in 
general,  and  various  experts  whom  Lankester  addressed 
upon  the  subject  informed  him  that  almost  nothing  was 
known  of  reptiles  or  Crustacea,  while  the  ichthyologist, 
Gunther,  said,  "There  is  scarcely  anything  known  about 
the  age  and  causes  of  death  of  fishes,"  and  Jeffreys,  a 
molluscan  expert,  says  the  same  of  them.  Insects,  on 
the  other  hand,  are  a  remarkable  exception.  Their  life 
is  so  short  that  it  can  sometimes  be  observed  almost  con- 

1  On  the  Comparative  Longevity  of  Man  and  Animals,  1870. 

34 


THE  HISTORY  OF  OLD  AGE 

tinuously  from  ovum  to  ovum.  There  is  in  general,  how- 
ever, Lankester  believes,  a  much  closer  relation  between 
the  life  span  of  individuals  of  the  same  than  between 
those  of  different  species,  specific  longevity  meaning  the 
average  length  of  life  of  the  individual  of  the  species. 
Of  all  this  we  know  far  more  of  man  than  of  any  other 
creature. 

If  age  went  with  size,  the  extinct  saurians  would  have 
attained  the  greatest  age  of  all  animals,  and  in  fact  they 
seem  to  have  grown  all  their  lives.  However  it  may 
have  been  in  past  geologic  ages,  it  may  yet  appear  that 
man,  on  the  average,  lives  longer  than  any  brutes.  This 
he  should  do  if  the  civilization  he  has  evolved  really 
gives  him  a  more  favorable  environment  than  nature  and 
instinct  have  provided  for  him.  Species,  like  individuals, 
very  probably  have  a  term  of  life  and  become  extinct 
with  age,  as  paleontology  shows  us  not  a  few  have  done. 
But  here,  too,  there  is  no  sufficient  basis  of  fact  at  pres- 
ent to  warrant  the  generalizations  so  often  met  with 
concerning  phyletic  immortality  or  senescence.  To  some 
aspects  of  this  theme  I  shall  recur  later  in  this  volume. 

Of  the  length  of  life  of  the  predecessors  of  modern 
man  we  know  almost  nothing.  In  evolving  as  he  did 
from  anthropoid  forms,  he  probably  also  considerably 
increased  his  span  of  life.  It  would  seem,  too,  as  if 
again  in  the  transition  from  the  unsocial,  short,  and  still 
somewhat  simian  Neanderthal  to  that  of  the  tall  and 
more  gregarious  Cro-Magnon  type  he  must  have  still 
further  increased  his  longevity.  But  through  all  the 
paleolithic  ages  (lasting  some  125,000  years  as  H.  F. 
Osborn  calculates 3)  there  are  no  data  either  in  the 
skeletal  remains  or  in  the  implements  he  used  that  shed 
any  clear  light  upon  the  subject;  and  the  same  is  true  of 
the  neolithic  cults  that  flowered  in  the  lake-  or  pile- 
dwellings.  Bones  show  different  stages  of  development, 

*Men  of  the  Old  Stone  Age,  New  York,  1915,  p.  40. 

35 


SENESCENCE 

and  teeth,  always  remarkably  well  preserved,  often  show 
the  effects  of  use ;  a  very  few  represent  children  but  not 
one  illustrates  extreme  old  age  according  to  the  osseous 
or  dental  criteria  of  modern  times.  Hence  we  may  con- 
jecture that  the  attainment  of  great  age  under  the  con- 
ditions of  life  then  prevailing  was  very  rare.  It  would 
seem  also  that  if  life  had  been  long  and  its  experiences 
well  ripened,  preserved,  and  transmitted  (so  that  each 
new  generation  would  not  merely  repeat  the  life  of  that 
which  had  preceded  it  but  profit  by  its  lessons),  progress 
would  not  have  been  so  very  slow,  as  it  was.  On  the 
other  hand,  it  might  be  urged  perhaps  with  equal  force 
that  if,  as  with  lower  races  now,  most  of  the  people  who 
made  prehistory  not  only  matured  but  grew  old  early, 
and  since  age  always  tends  to  be  conservative  and  unpro- 
gressive,  it  would  make  for  retardation,  even  though  it 
came  in  years  that  seem  premature  to  us.  Very  prob- 
ably even  in  these  rude  stages  of  life  men  who  felt  their 
physical  powers  beginning  to  abate — at  least  the  more 
sagacious  of  them — had  already  hit  upon  some  of  the 
many  devices  by  which  the  aging  have  very  commonly 
contrived  to  maintain  their  position  and  even  increase 
their  importance  in  the  community  by  developing  wis- 
dom in  counsel,  becoming  repertories  of  tribal  tradition 
and  custom,  and  representatives  of  feared  supernatural 
forces  or  persons,  etc.  But  of  all  this  paleo-anthropology 
has,  up  to  date,  almost  nothing  to  tell  us.  Nor  do  we  see 
much  reason  to  believe  it  ever  will.  All  these  culture 
stages  of  the  Old  Stone  Age  have  left  us  little  but 
material  vestiges  of  its  industries — bones,  a  few  carv- 
ings on  cave  walls  or  on  bones  and  ivory,  and  very  many 
chipped  flints.  Nothing  of  wood,  skin,  fiber  or  other 
material  for  binding,  which  must  have  been  used,  sur- 
vives.* Much  as  these  bones  and  stones  tell  us,  they 

4  See  my  "What  We  Owe  to  the  Tree-life  of  Our  Ape-like  Ancestors," 
Fed.  Sem.,  23:94-116,  1916. 

36 


THE  HISTORY  OF  OLD  AGE 

have  really  done  more  to  increase  our  curiosity  than  to 
satisfy  it.  We  know  almost  nothing  of  how  these  thou- 
sands of  generations  of  men  viewed  life  or  nature,  or  in 
what  spirit  and  with  what  knowledge  they  met  disease, 
age,  and  death. 

What  is  called  belief  in  another  life  is  for  primitives 
or  children  only  inability  to  grasp  completely  the  very 
difficult  fact  of  death  and  to  distinguish  it  from  sleep. 
The  disposition  of  some  of  the  troglodyte  skeletons  sug- 
gests that  these  ancient  forbears  of  our  race  were  unable 
to  realize  that  death  ends  all.  Despite  the  close  analogy 
and  even  kinship  between  human  and  animal  life  so 
deeply  felt  in  early  days,  it  was  probably  always  some- 
what harder  for  early  man  to  conceive  death  for  himself 
as  complete  cessation  than  to  so  conceive  it  for  the 
higher  forms  of  animal  life  with  which  his  own  was  so 
intimately  associated.  Our  ignorance  of  all  these  stages 
of  human  evolution  becomes  all  the  more  pathetic  as  we 
are  now  coming  to  understand  that  it  was  then  that  all 
the  deeper  unconscious  and  dispositional  strata  of  Man- 
soul,  which  still  dominate  us  far  more  than  we  are 
even  yet  aware,  were  being  laid  down,  and  it  is  upon 
these  traits  that  the  later  and  conscious  superstructure 
of  our  nature  has  been  reared.  Only  hard  things  sur- 
vive the  ravages  of  time,  and  psychic  traits  and  trends 
are  the  softest  of  all  soft  things,  although  they  are  no 
less  persistent  by  way  of  biological  and  social  inher- 
itance than  skeletons  and  flints. 

Turning  to  the  lower  races  of  mankind  that  now  sur- 
vive and  are  accessible  to  study,  we  find  only  very  few 
scattered,  fragmentary,  and  often  contradictory  data  as 
to  old  age.  Yarrow  has  made  a  comprehensive  study  of 
mortuary  customs,  both  of  savages  and  man  in  the 
earlier  stages  of  civilization.  Mallory  brought  together 
what  we  know  of  sign  language.  Ploss  has  given  us  a 
compend  on  the  child  among  primitives  and,  with  Bar- 

37 


SENESCENCE 

tels,  on  woman.  I  have  tried  to  compile  the  customs  and 
ideas  of  pubescent  initiation  ;5  while  animism,  marriage 
rites,  property  and  ownership,  systems  of  kinship,  mana 
concepts,  hunting  and  trapping,  war  weapons,  dances, 
ideas  of  disease  and  the  function  of  the  "medicine  man," 
dwellings,  dress,  ornamentation,  number  systems,  lan- 
guage, fire-making,  industries,  food,  myths,  and  cere- 
monies galore,  and  many  other  themes  have  had  com- 
prehensive and  comparative  treatment.  But  I  am  able 
to  find  nothing  of  the  kind  (and  Professor  F.  Boas,  our 
most  accomplished  American  scholar  in  this  field,  knows 
of  nothing  compendious)  on  old  age  in  any  language. 
Anthropology,  therefore,  has  so  far  produced  no  geron- 
tologists.  I  have  looked  over  many  volumes  of  travel 
and  exploration  among  the  so-called  lower  races  of 
mankind,  only  to  find  nothing  or  brief  and  more  or  less 
incidental  mentions  of  senescence.  This  neglect  is  itself 
significant  of  the  inconspicuous  role  the  old  play  in  rude 
tribal  life  and  also  of  the  lack  of  vital  interest  in  the 
theme  by  investigators. 

From  my  own  meager  and  inadequate  gleanings  in 
this  field  the  unfavorable  far  outweigh  the  favorable 
mentions.  The  Encyclopedia  Britannica  tells  us  that 
from  Herodotus,  Strabo,  and  others  we  learn  of  people 
like  the  Scythian  Massagetae,  a  nomad  race  northeast 
of  the  Caspian  Sea,  who  killed  old  people  and  ate  them. 
For  savages  the  practice  of  devouring  dead  kinsfolk  is 
often  regarded  as  the  most  respectful  method  of  dispos- 
ing of  their  remains.  In  a  few  cases  this  custom  is  com- 
bined with  that  of  killing  both  the  old  and  sick,  but  it  is 
more  often  simply  a  form  of  burial.  It  prevails  in  many 
parts  of  Australia,  Melanesia,  Africa,  South  America, 
and  elsewhere. 

Reclus6  tells  us  that  among  the  various   Siberian 

'Adolescence,  Ch.  XIII,  "Savage  Pubic  Initiations,"  etc. 
•  Primitive  Folk,  p.  42. 

38 


THE  HISTORY  OF  OLD  AGE 

tribes  aged  and  sickly  people  who  are  useless  are  asked 
if  they  have  "had  enough  of  it."  It  is  a  matter  of  duty 
and  honor  on  their  part  to  reply  "yes."  Thereupon  an 
oval  pit  is  roughly  excavated  in  a  burial  ground  and 
filled  with  moss.  Heavy  stones  are  rolled  near,  the  ex- 
tremities of  the  victim  are  bound  to  two  horizontal  poles, 
and  on  the  headstone  a  reindeer  is  slaughtered,  its  blood 
flowing  in  torrents  over  the  moss.  The  old  man  stretches 
himself  upon  this  warm  red  couch.  In  the  twinkling  of 
an  eye  he  finds  that  he  is  securely  bound  to  the  poles. 
Then  he  is  asked  "Art  thou  ready?"  At  this  stage  of 
the  proceeding  it  would  be  folly  to  articulate  a  negative 
response.  Moreover,  his  friends  would  pretend  not  to 
hear  it.  So  his  moriturus  saluto  is  "Good  night, 
friends."  They  then  stop  his  nostrils  with  a  stupefying 
substance  and  open  his  carotid  and  a  large  vein  in  his 
arm,  so  that  he  is  bled  to  death  in  no  time.  Among  most 
races,  Reclus  tells  us,  children  are  killed  by  being  ex- 
posed ;  the  old,  by  being  deserted. 

In  Terra  del  Fuego,  Darwin  tells  how  Jimmy  Buttons, 
a  native,  described  the  slaughter  of  the  aged  in  winter 
and  famine.  Dogs,  he  said,  catch  otters;  old  women, 
not.  He  then  proceeded  to  detail  just  how  they  were 
killed,  imitated  and  ridiculed  their  cries  and  shrieks,  told 
the  parts  of  their  bodies  that  were  best  to  eat,  and  said 
they  must  generally  be  killed  by  friends  and  relatives. 

Among  the  Hottentots,  when  their  aged  men  and 
women  can  "no  longer  be  of  any  manner  of  service  in 
anything,"  they  are  conveyed  by  an  ox,  accompanied  by 
most  of  the  inhabitants  of  the  kraal,  to  a  solitary  hut  at 
a  considerable  distance  and,  with  a  small  stock  of  pro- 
visions, laid  in  the  middle  of  the  hut,  which  is  then 
securely  closed.  The  company  returns,  deserting  him 
forever.  They  think  it  the  most  humane  thing  they  can 
do  to  thus  hasten  the  conclusion  of  life  when  it  has 
become  a  burden. 

39 


SENESCENCE 

With  at  least  one  of  the  Papuan  races  in  New  Guinea, 
people  when  old  and  useless  are  put  up  a  tree,  around 
which  the  tribe  sing  "The  fruit  is  ripe"  and  then  shake 
the  branches  until  the  victim  falls,  tearing  him  to  pieces 
and  eating  him  raw.  Among  the  Damaras  the  sick  and 
aged  are  often  cruelly  treated,  forsaken,  or  burned  alive. 
In  some  of  the  East  African  tribes  the  aged  and  all  sup- 
posed to  be  at  the  point  of  death  are  slain  and  eaten. 
One  author  tells  us  that  among  the  Fijians  the  practice 
of  burying  alive  is  "so  common  that  but  few  old  and 
decrepit  people  are  to  be  seen."  In  Herbert  Spencer's 
anthropological  charts  we  are  told  that  among  the  Chip- 
pewas  "old  age  is  the  greatest  calamity  that  can  befall  a 
northern  Indian  for  he  is  neglected  and  treated  with 
disrespect." 

C.  Wissler 7  says,  "As  to  the  aged  and  sick,  we  have 
the  formal  practice  of  putting  to  death  among  some  of 
the  Esquimaux  and  other  races."  On  the  other  hand, 
among  all  hunting  people  who  shift  from  place  to  place 
the  infirm  are  often  of  necessity  left  behind  to  their 
fate.  Yet  the  reported  examples  of  such  cruelties  can 
usually  be  matched  by  instances  of  the  opposite  tenor. 
He  goes  on  to  say  that  since  the  mythologies  of  various 
tribal  groups  contain  rites  showing  retribution  for  such 
cruelties  we  must  regard  them  as,  on  the  whole,  excep- 
tional. 

S.  K.  Hutton 8  says, 

I  found  age  a  very  deceptive  thing.  "Sixty-two"  might  be  the 
answer  from  a  bowed  old  figure  crouching  over  the  stove.  I 
would  have  guessed  twenty  years  more  than  that.  The  fact  is, 
the  Eskimo  wears  out  fast.  After  fifty  he  begins  to  decline,  and 
few  live  long  after  sixty.  I  have  known  a  few  over  seventy,  and 
the  people  told  me  with  wonderment  about  an  old  woman  who 
lived  to  be  eighty-two  and  who  worked  to  the  last.  But  these 

1  The  American  Indian,  p.  177- 

•  Among  the  Eskimos  of  Labrador,  p.  in. 

40 


THE  HISTORY  OF  OLD  AGE 

are  great  rarities.  It  must  be  a  unique  thing  in  one's  lifetime  to 
meet  with  an  Eskimo  great-grandmother.  The  very  old  people 
seem  always  to  be  active  to  the  last.  They  have  an  unusual 
amount  of  vitality  and  die  in  the  harness,  dropping  out  like  those 
too  tired  to  go  any  further  and  passing  away  without  illness  or 
suffering.  These  are  always  those  who  have  clung  most  closely 
to  their  own  native  foods  and  customs.  Women  who  are  too  old 
and  toothless  to  chew  the  boot-leather  can  still  scrape  the  seal- 
skins, perhaps  with  a  skill  which  the  younger  women  lack ;  if  they 
are  too  blind  and  feeble  to  scrape,  they  can  sit  behind  a  wall  of 
snow  upon  the  sea-ice  and  jig  for  the  sleepy  rock-cod  through  a 
hole. 

C.  A.  Scott 9  tells  us  that  in  certain  south  Australian 
tribes  it  is  taboo  to  catch  or  eat  certain  animals  until  a 
man  has  reached  a  prescribed  advanced  age,,  these  ani- 
mals being  easiest  to  catch  and  the  most  wholesome  and 
thus  best  adapted  to  old  people's  use.  One  of  the  chief 
maxims  in  Tonga  is  to  reverence  the  gods,  the  chief,  and 
old  people.  In  Java,  among  the  Iroquois,  Dakotas, 
Comanches,  the  Hill  tribes  of  India  (Santals  and 
Kukis),  the  Snakes  and  Zunis,  much  respect  is  shown  to 
the  aged. 

K.  Routledge 10  says,  "part  of  the  deference  paid  to 
advancing  years,  whether  in  men  or  women,  is  due  to 
fear.  Old  age  has  something  uncanny  about  it,  and  old 
persons  could  probably  'make  medicine*  or  work  havoc, 
were  they  so  inclined."  One  chief  said  that  in  councils 
the  old  women  would  have  their  way  because  "it  is  a 
great  work  to  have  borne  a  child."  A  young  warrior  is 
taughj;  to  get  out  of  the  road  for  an  old  woman.  She 
does  not,  however,  take  part  in  the  sacrifices,  although 
one  called  herself  the  wife  of  God  and  seemed  to  have 
established  a  sort  of  cult.  This  was  because  she  was  a 
woman  of  much  character.  Here  the  mothers  take  full 

*  "Old  Age  and  Death,"  Am.  Jour.  Psychol,  October,  1896. 
10  With  a  Prehistoric  People:     The  Akikuyu  of  British  East  Africa, 
P-  157- 

41 


SENESCENCE 

part  in  initiations.  The  dignity  and  self-reliance  of  the 
older  women  is  remarkable.  When  a  woman  is  so  old 
that  she  has  no  teeth  she  is  said  to  be  "filled  with  intelli- 
gence" and  on  her  death  receives  the  high  honor  of 
burial  instead  of  being  thrown  out  to  the  hyenas. 

A.  L.  Cureau  "  tells  us  that  the  Negro  is  short-lived 
and  that  if  some  lucky  star  enables  him  to  reach  forty  he 
becomes  a  man  of  importance,  although  death  does  not 
usually  permit  him  to  enjoy  this  distinction  long.  "Dur- 
ing more  than  twenty  years  I  never  knew  more  than 
four  or  five  who  could  have  been  considered  sixty-five 
or  seventy  years  of  age,  and  even  persons  who  were 
from  fifty  to  sixty  are  very  uncommon.  At  the  age  of 
thirty-five  or  forty  they  all  exhibit  signs  of  premature 
decrepitude."  He  thinks  the  death  rate  from  forty  to 
forty-five  very  high.  Disease  among  the  Africans  is 
limited  to  only  a  few  general  troubles.  Burial  is  usually 
by  interment,  although  in  some  districts  the  dead  are 
eaten,  while  elsewhere  they  are  thrown  into  the  river  or 
left  lying  on  the  ground  in  some  remote  spot.  Respect 
for  the  chief,  however,  continues  to  be  observed  even 
after  his  death.  But  customs  are  growing  mild,  and  "if 
human  sacrifice  still  takes  place  in  locations  that  are 
most  remote  from  our  stations,  the  fact  is  kept  a  pro- 
found secret." 

H.  A.  Junod  "  gives  a  melancholy  picture  of  old  age, 
especially  for  the  leading  man  of  the  tribe.  His  wives 
die,  his  glory  fades,  his  crown  loses  its  luster  and  if  it  is 
scratched  or  broken  he  cannot  repair  it,  he  is  forsaken, 
less  respected,  and  often  only  a  burden  unwillingly  sup- 
ported. "The  children  laugh  at  him.  If  the  cook  sends 
them  to  their  lonely  grandfather  with  his  share  of  food 
in  the  leaky  old  hut,  the  young  rascals  are  capable  of 
eating  it  on  the  way,  pretending  afterwards  that  they 

M  Savage  Man  in  Central  Africa,  p.  176. 
u  The  Life  of  a  South-African  Tribe,  p.  131. 

42 


THE  HISTORY  OF  OLD  AGE 

did  what  they  were  told."  When,  between  two  huts, 
under  the  shelter  of  the  woods  the  old  man  warms  his 
round-shouldered  back  in  the  rays  of  the  sun,  lost  in 
some  senile  dream,  his  former  friends  point  to  him  and 
say,  "It  is  the  bogie  man,  the  ogre."  Mature  people 
show  little  more  consideration  for  the  old  than  do  the 
young  ones.  Junod  knew  personally  an  old  man  and 
woman  who,  when  their  children  moved  to  another  part 
of  the  country,  were  left  under  a  roof  with  no  sides, 
without  food,  and  were  almost  imbecile.  "In  times  of 
war  old  people  die  in  great  numbers.  During  the  move- 
ments of  panic  they  are  hidden  in  the  woods,  in  the 
swamps  or  palm  trees,  while  all  the  able-bodied  popula- 
tion runs  away.  They  are  killed  by  the  enemy,  who  spare 
no  one,  or  they  die  in  their  hiding  places  of  misery  and 
hunger.  Thus  the  evening  of  life  is  very  sad  for  the 
poor  Thonga."  There  are,  however,  children  who  to  the 
end  show  devotion  to  their  parents.  Those  old  people 
are  most  to  be  pitied  who  fall  to  the  charge  of  remote 
relatives. 

A.  Hrdlicka 13  says,  "The  proportion  of  nonagen- 
arians, and  especially  centenarians,  among  the  Indians 
is  far  in  excess  of  that  among  native  white  Americans." 
As  to  the  source  of  error,  he  thinks  this  is  somewhat 
offset  by  the  "marked  general  interest  centering  about 
the  oldest  of  every  tribe."  He  found  twenty-four  per 
million  among  the  Indians  as  against  three  per  million 
among  native  whites  who  had  reached  a  hundred,  and 
says,  "The  relative  excess  of  aged  persons  (80  years 
and  above)  among  the  Indians  would  signify  only  that 
the  infirmities  and  diseases  known  ordinarily  as  those  of 
old  age  are  less  grave  among  them,  a  conclusion  in  har- 
mony with  general  observation."  Among  the  fifteen 
tribes  embraced  in  this  very  careful  and  valuable  investi- 

11  "Physiological  and  Medical  Observations  on  the  Indians  of  Southwest 
United  States  and  Mexico,"  Bureau  Amer.  Ethnol.,  Bull.  34. 

43 


SENESCENCE 

gation,  Hrdlicka  found  in  the  old  far  less  grayness  and 
baldness  and  far  better  teeth  than  among  the  whites. 
They  had  more  wrinkles  but  their  muscular  force  was 
better  preserved.  Many  debilitating  effects  among  the 
whites  are  less  so  among  the  Indians.  In  general  there 
is  some  bending  and  emaciation  and  the  hair  grows  iron 
gray  or  yellowish-gray,  but  never  white.  Nor  did  he 
find  among  those  of  ninety  a  single  one  who  was  de- 
mented or  helpless.  The  aged  were  generally  more  or 
less  neglected,  and  had  to  care  for  themselves  and  help 
the  younger.  Owing  to  the  diminution  of  the  alveoli  and 
adipose  tissue,  "the  jaw  looks  more  prominent,  prog- 
nathism  disappears,  and  the  face  looks  shorter."  There 
is  an  increase  in  the  nasal  index,  the  nose  becomes 
broader  and  shorter,  the  malar  bones  more  prominent. 
The  eyes  lose  their  luster  and  generally  become  nar- 
rowed, with  adhesions  at  the  canthi,  particularly  the 
external.  The  hardening  of  arteries  is  certainly  not 
common.  Of  716  well  preserved  males  of  65,  only  4  per 
cent  showed  baldness;  and  among  377  women  there  was 
but  one  slightly  bald,  the  baldness  being  about  equally 
common  on  vertex  and  forehead. 

In  W.  I.  Thomas's  Source  Book  for  Social  Origins 
containing  articles  by  various  authors,  we  are  told  that 
among  some  o'f  the  Australian  tribes  old  age  is  a  very 
prominent  factor  in  preeminence.  After  they  have  be- 
come feeble  the  old  may  have  great  authority,  somewhat 
in  proportion  to  what  they  know  of  ancient  lore,  magic, 
medicine,  and  especially  if  they  are  totem  heads.  Their 
authority  is  not  patriarchal,  and  yet  among  the  Yakuts, 
whether  they  are  rich  or  poor,  good  or  bad,  the  old  are 
sometimes  beaten  by  their  children,  especially  if  feeble- 
minded. On  the  other  hand,  a  weak  man  of  seventy  may 
beat  his  forty-year-old  son  who  is  strong  and  rich  but  in 
awe  of  his  parent  because  he  has  so  much  to  inherit  from 
him.  The  transfer  of  authority  and  property  to  the  son 

44 


THE  HISTORY  OF  OLD  AGE 

often  comes  very  late.  The  greatest  number  of  suicides 
is  among  the  old  people.  A  man  who  beat  his  mother 
said,  "Let  her  cry  and  go  hungry.  She  made  me  cry 
more  than  once  and  beat  me  for  trifles,"  etc. 

In  this  volume  we  are  told,  too,  that  even  the  Fue- 
gians,  who  in  times  of  scarcity  kill  and  eat  their  old 
women  for  food,  are  generally  affectionate,  and  until  the 
whites  interfered  with  their  social  order  the  old  often 
had  considerable  authority.  They  sometimes  prepare 
programs  for  ceremonials,  which  are  very  strictly  ob- 
served by  a  hundred  younger  men.  In  some  Australian 
tribes,  too,  a  man's  authority  generally  increases  with 
age ;  and  this  is  true,  though  less  frequently,  of  women. 
The  old  enforce  the  strictest  marriage  rules  and  have 
much  influence  over  the  thoughts  and  feelings  of  the 
tribes.  The  old  men  often  sit  in  a  circle  and  speak  on 
public  matters,  one  after  another,  the  young  men  stand- 
ing outside  in  silence.  A  few  old  men  may  retire  to  dis- 
cuss secret  matters  of  importance.  Offenders  are  often 
brought  before  them  for  trial  and  sentence.  The  old 
men  of  a  tribe  often  band  themselves  together  and  by 
working  on  the  superstitions  of  the  tribe  secure  for 
themselves  not  only  comfort  but  unbounded  influence. 
In  the  famous  Duk-Duk  ceremonial  they  alone  were  in 
the  secret,  and  all  others  were  impressed  with  the  super- 
natural character  of  the  actors  in  these  rites. 

Ploss  and  Bartels  "  amplify  the  great  changes  senes- 
cence brings  to  women.  Age  not  only  obliterates  race 
but  sex.  It  often  makes  the  most  beautiful  into  the  most 
ugly,  for  handsome  old  women  among  primitives  are 
unknown.  Children  dread  them.  They  often  become 
careless  of  looks,  the  hand  is  claw-like,  etc.  A  wide- 
spread German  superstition  is  that  if  an  old  woman 
crosses  the  path  of  a  hunter  he  will  get  nothing.  They 

14  Das  Weib  in  der  Natur-  und  Volkerkunde,  Chap.  74. 

45 


SENESCENCE 

are  ominous  for  marriages  and  some  neurotics  cannot 
look  at  them.  They  are  sometimes  said  to  have  seven 
lives.  Hans  Sachs  in  poetry  and  Cranach  in  painting, 
in  describing  the  fountains  of  youth,  represent  chiefly 
old  women  entering  on  the  one  side  with  every  sign  of 
decrepitude  and  coming  out  on  the  other  beautiful,  with 
wonderful  toilets,  and  sometimes  immediately  engaging 
in  orgies.  Old  women  in  early  times  sometimes  had  a 
guild,  devised  means  of  conjuration,  made  pacts  or 
leagues  with  the  devil,  presided  over  the  Walpurgis  fes- 
tivals, conjured  with  magic  words,  had  evil  eyes,  knew 
strange  brews,  sometimes  committed  all  kinds  of  lascivi- 
ousness  with  devils,  might  transform  themselves  into 
shapes  as  attractive  as  Circe  for  Ulysses  or  Medea  for 
Jason,  or  take  the  more  ominous  forms  of  Hecate  and 
Lamea.  These  maleficent  creatures  often  allied  them- 
selves with  black  cats,  serpents,  owls,  bats,  had  their 
salves  and  witch  sabbaths,  etc. 

Frazer  approaches  this  subject  from  a  different  angle. 
In  the  second  chapter  of  his  volume  entitled  The  Dying 
God  he  tells  us  that  in  Fiji  self-immolation  is  by  no 
means  rare,  and  the  Fijians  believe  that  as  they  leave 
this  life  they  will  remain  ever  after.  This  is  a  powerful 
motive  to  escape  from  decrepitude  or  from  a  crippled 
condition  by  voluntary  death.  "The  custom  of  voluntary 
suicide  on  the  part  of  the  old  men,  which  is  among  their 
most  extraordinary  usages,  is  connected  with  their 
superstitions  regarding  a  future  life."  To  this  must  be 
added  the  contempt  that  attaches  to  physical  weakness 
among  a  nation  of  warriors,  and  the  wrongs  and  insults 
that  await  those  who  are  no  longer  able  to  protect  them- 
selves. So  when  a  man  feels  age  creeping  on,  so  that  he 
can  no  longer  fully  discharge  the  duties  or  enjoy  the 
pleasures  of  life,  he  calls  his  relations,  tells  them  he  is 
worn  out  and  useless,  that  they  are  ashamed  of  him,  and 
he  is  determined  to  be  buried.  So  on  an  appointed  day 

46 


THE  HISTORY  OF  OLD  AGE 

they  meet  and  bury  him  alive.  In  the  New  Hebrides  the 
aged  were  buried  alive  at  their  own  request.  "It  was 
considered  a  disgrace  to  a  family  of  an  old  chief  if  he 
was  not  buried  alive."  A  Jewish  tribe  of  Abyssinia 
never  let  a  person  die  a  natural  death,  for  if  any  of  their 
relatives  was  near  expiring  the  priest  of  the  tribe  was 
called  to  cut  his  throat.  If  this  ceremony  was  omitted, 
they  believed  the  departed  soul  had  not  entered  the  man- 
sions of  the  blessed.  Heraclitus  thought  that  the  souls 
of  those  who  die  in  battle  are  purer  than  those  who  die  of 
disease.  In  a  South  American  tribe,  when  a  man  is  at 
the  point  of  death  his  nearest  relatives  break  his  spine 
with  an  axe,  for  to  die  a  natural  death  is  the  greatest 
misfortune.  In  Paraguay,  when  a  man  grows  weary  of 
life,  a  feast  is  made,  with  revelry  and  dancing,  and  the 
man  is  gummed  and  feathered  with  the  plumage  of 
many  birds  and  a  huge  jar  is  fixed  in  the  ground,  the 
mouth  of  which  is  closed  over  him  with  baked  clay.  Thus 
he  goes  to  his  doom  "more  joyful  and  gladsome  than  to 
his  first  nuptials." 

With  a  tribe  in  northeastern  Asia,  when  a  man  feels 
his  last  hour  has  come,  he  must  either  kill  himself  or  be 
killed  by  a  friend.  In  another  tribe  he  requests  his  son 
or  some  near  relative  to  dispose  of  him,  choosing  the 
manner  of  death  he  prefers.  So  his  friends  and  neigh- 
bors assemble  and  he  is  stabbed,  strangled,  or  otherwise 
slain.  Elsewhere,  if  a  man  dies  a  natural  death,  his 
corpse  must  be  wounded,  so  that  he  may  seem  to  be  re- 
ceived with  the  same  honors  in  the  next  world  as  if  he 
had  died  in  battle,  as  Odin  wanted  for  his  disciples.  The 
Wends  once  killed  their  aged  parents  and  other  kinsfolk 
and  boiled  and  ate  their  bodies,  and  the  old  folk  "pre- 
ferred to  die  thus  rather  than  drag  out  a  weary  life  of 
poverty  and  decrepitude."  Kings  are  killed  when  their 
strength  fails.  The  people  of  Congo  believed  that  if 
their  pontiff  died  a  natural  death,  the  earth  would  perish, 

47 


SENESCENCE 

since  he  sustained  it  by  his  power  and  merit,  and  that 
everything  would  be  annihilated.  So  his  successor 
entered  his  house  and  slew  him  with  a  rope  or  club.  "The 
king  must  not  be  allowed  to  become  ill  or  senile  lest  with 
his  diminishing  vigor  the  cattle  should  sicken  and  fail  to 
bear  their  increase,  the  crops  should  rot  in  the  field,  and 
man,  stricken  with  disease,  should  die."  So  the  king 
who  showed  signs  of  illness  or  failing  strength  was  put 
to  death. 

One  of  the  fatal  symptoms  of  decay  was  taken  to  be  incapacity 
to  satisfy  the  sexual  passion  of  his  wives,  of  whom  he  has  very 
many  distributed  in  a  large  number  of  huts  at  Fashoda.  When 
this  ominous  weakness  manifested  itself,  the  wives  reported  it 
to  the  chiefs,  who  were  popularly  said  to  have  intimated  to  the 
king  his  doom  by  spreading  a  white  cloth  over  his  face  and  knees 
as  he  lay  slumbering  in  the  heat  of  the  sultry  afternoon.  Execu- 
tion soon  followed  the  sentence  of  death.  A  hut  was  especially 
built  for  the  occasion,  the  king  was  led  to  it  and  laid  down  with 
his  head  resting  on  the  lap  of  a  nubile  virgin,  the  door  of  the  hut 
was  then  walled  up,  and  the  couple  were  left  without  food,  fire, 
or  water,  to  die  of  hunger  and  suffocation. 

This  custom  persisted  till  five  generations  ago. 

Seligmann  shows  that  the  Shilluk  king  was  "liable 
to  be  killed  with  due  ceremony  at  the  first  symptoms  of 
incipient  decay."  But  even  while  he  was  yet  in  the  prime 
of  health  and  strength  he  might  be  attacked  at  any  time 
by  a  rival  and  have  to  defend  his  crown  in  a  combat  to 
death.  According  to  the  common  Shilluk  tradition,  any 
son  of  a  king  had  a  right  thus  to  fight  the  king  in  posses- 
sion, and  if  he  succeeded  in  killing  him  he  reigned  in  his 
stead.  As  every  king  had  a  large  harem  and  many  sons, 
the  number  of  possible  candidates  for  the  throne  at  any 
time  may  well  have  been  not  inconsiderable,  and  the 
reigning  monarch  must  have  carried  his  life  in  his  hand. 
But  the  attack  on  him  could  only  take  place  by  night 
with  any  prospect  of  success.  Then,  according  to  cus- 

48 


THE  HISTORY  OF  OLD  AGE 

torn,  his  guards  had  to  be  dismissed;  so  the  hours  of 
darkness  were  of  special  peril.  It  was  a  point  of  honor 
for  the  king  not  to  call  his  herdsmen  to  his  assistance. 
The  age  at  which  the  king  was  killed  would  seem  to  have 
been  commonly  between  forty  and  fifty.  The  Zulus  put 
a  king  to  death  as  soon  as  he  began  to  have  wrinkles  and 
gray  hair.  Elsewhere  kings  were  often  killed  at  the  end 
of  a  fixed  term,  perhaps  because  it  was  thought  unsafe  to 
wait  for  the  slightest  symptom  of  decay. 

A  unique  and  transformed  survival  of  many  such  cus- 
toms, according  to  Frazer,  lingered  in  the  vale  of  Nemi, 
idealized  in  Turner's  picture.  He  tells  us  how  in  ancient 
times  and  long  persisting  there,  like  a  primeval  rock 
jutting  out  of  a  well  shaven  lawn,  the  priest-king 
watched  all  night  with  drawn  sword.  He  was  a  mur- 
derer and  would  himself  sooner  or  later  be  slain  by  his 
successor,  for  this  was  the  rule  of  the  sanctuary.  The 
candidate  for  the  priesthood  could  only  succeed  to  office 
by  slaying  the  priest,  and  having  slain  him  he  retained 
office  until  he  himself  was  slain  by  one  stronger  or 
craftier.  Although  he  held  the  title  of  king,  no  crowned 
head  was  ever  uneasier.  The  least  relaxation  of  vigi- 
lance put  him  in  jeopardy.  This  rule  had  no  parallel 
in  historic  antiquity  but  we  must  go  farther  back.  Re- 
cent studies  show  the  essential  similarity  with  which, 
with  many  superficial  differences,  the  human  mind  elab- 
orated its  first  crude  philosophy  of  life.  Hence  we  must 
study  outcrops  of  the  same  institution  elsewhere,  and 
Frazer  tells  us  that  the  object  of  his  book  is,  by  meeting 
these  conditions,  to  offer  a  fairly  probable  explanation 
of  the  priesthood  of  Nemi.  Once,  only  a  runaway  slave 
could  break  off  the  mistletoe  from  the  oak,  and  success 
in  this  enabled  him  to  fight  the  priest  in  single  combat; 
if  he  won  he  would  become  King  of  the  Woods. 

There  are  many  unique  features  in  the  attitude  of  the 
Jewish  mind  toward  old  age.  In  Genesis  5:30*  seq.  the 

49 


SENESCENCE 

ages  of  the  antediluvian  patriarchs  are  given.  Adam 
lived  930  years;  Seth,  912;  Enos,  905;  Cainan,  970; 
Mahalaleel,  895;  Jared,  962;  Enoch,  365;  Methuselah, 
969;  Lamech,  777.  All  but  four  of  them  "begat"  be- 
tween 65  and  90 — Adam  at  130,  Methuselah  at  187, 
Jared  at  182,  Noah  at  500.  By  nearly  all  modern 
scholars  these  great  ages  have  been  regarded  as  myth- 
ical, but  so  scientific  and  modern  a  student  as  T.  E. 
Young,"  who  is  very  skeptical  about  all  later  records  of 
great  longevity,  devotes  a  long  chapter  to  these  records, 
which  he  is  almost  inclined  to  credit.  He  goes  to 
original  sources,  gives  various  hypotheses,  epitomizes 
diverse  writers  on  the  subject,  and  finally  raises  the 
question  whether  or  not  in  ancient  days  atmospheric 
conditions,  food,  and  a  different  and  more  uniform 
climate  might  not  have  caused  an  unprecedented  pro- 
longation of  human  life.  He  does  not,  of  course,  credit 
the  ancient  literature  of  India,  where  holy  men  are  said 
to  have  lived  eighty  thousand  years  and  where  in  the 
most  flourishing  period  of  Indian  antiquity  the  term  of 
one  hundred  thousand  was  regarded  as  the  average 
length  of  the  life  of  saints.  He  fully  recognizes,  too,  the 
influence  of  mystic  numbers  here,  which  persisted  until 
the  age  of  the  higher  criticism,  and  is  incredulous  about 
most  of  the  modern  records  of  centenarians.  His  point 
of  view  is  that  man  has  now  passed  his  acme  and  that  a 
slow  decline  of  the  human  race,  which  will  end  in  its 
extinction,  has  already  begun,  masked  as  it  is  by  modern 
hygiene,  which  prolongs  life  beyond  the  average  term 
it  would  otherwise  have  reached.  Thus  human  vitality 
as  measured  by  length  of  life  is  slowly  but  irresistibly 
waning.1* 

•  On  Centenarians  and  the  Duration  of  the  Human  Race,  1899. 

"A  few  even  recent  writers  have  gone  to  the  extreme  of  doubting  the 
authenticity  of  every  record  of  human  life  beyond  a  century,  although 
Young  seems  to  have  demonstrated  it  in  his  twenty-two  annuitants.  All 

50 


THE  HISTORY  OF  OLD  AGE 

The  correspondence  between  organism  and  environ- 
ment, which  makes  life  perfect,  was  probably  once  bet- 
ter than  now.  Bacteriology  is  a  factor  never  to  be 
forgotten  and  there  may  be  a  new  acidity  of  juices. 
Perhaps  the  energy  of  the  sun  is  decreasing  and  also  the 
productivity  of  the  earth.  Indeed,  it  is  very  probable 
that  the  solar  system  has  attained  its  maturity  or  mid- 
way stage.  From  such  data  Young  concludes,  "The 
average  intellectual  condition  of  the  present  period,  I 
should  be  inclined  to  surmise,  exhibits  no  sign  whatever 
of  an  ampler  development."  Knowledge  has  become 
mechanical  and  has  lost  its  capacity  as  the  instrument  of 
self-cultivation.  The  highest  faculties  are  decaying 
from  cessation  of  activity  and  coherent  function.  Man 
has  reached  his  limit.  The  utilities  of  civilization  are 

such  contentions  are  only  doctrinnaire.  Lives  exceptionally  prolonged 
may  be  abnormal,  like  dwarfs  and  giants,  and  extreme  skepticism  here 
has  hardly  more  justification  than  extreme  credulity.  In  1799  James 
Easton  believed  he  had  demonstrated  that  712  persons  between  the  years 
A.D.  66  and  the  above  date  had  attained  a  century  or  upward.  He 
found  three  whom  he  thought  had  lived  between  170  and  175  years;  two 
who  had  lived  160  to  170;  three,  150-160;  seven,  140-150;  twenty-six, 
130-140;  eighty-four,  120-130;  and  thirteen  hundred  and  ten,  loo-no.  Even 
Babbage  assumed  150  as  the  limit  of  age  in  his  abstract  tables  based  upon 
seventeen  hundred  and  fifty-one  persons  who  had  attained  100  or  more. 
A.  Haller  (1766)  accepted  the  age  of  Parr  and  Jenkins  and  is  quite 
uncritical,  saying  that  over  one  thousand  men  have  lived  to  be  loo-no, 
and  twenty-five  have  lived  to  between  130-140.  He  even  accepts  Pliny's 
story  of  a  man  who  lived  to  be  300,  and  Another  340  years.  Hufeland 
seems  to  approve  the  traditional  157  years  of  Epimenides,  108  of  Gorgias, 
139  of  Democritus,  100  of  Zeno,  105  of  St.  Anthony,  and  credited  J. 
Effingham  in  Cornwall  with  144  years.  W.  J.  Thorns  (Human  Lon- 
gevity: Its  Facts  and  Its  Fictions,  1873)  is  skeptical  of  great  longevities 
and  found  no  sure  case  of  centenarians  in  any  noble  family.  J.  Pinney 
(1856)  went  to  the  limit  of  credulity,  believing  that  there  were  three  eras 
in  which  men  lived  to  ooo,  450,  and  70  respectively.  G.  C.  Lewis  thinks 
there  is  no  authentic  record  of  a  life  exceeding  100  years.  W.  Farr  in 
1871  said  that  in  1821  there  were  216  centenarians  in  England;  in  1841, 
249;  1851,  215;  1861,  201;  1871,  160,  making  a  total  of  1,041,  of  whom 
716  were  females.  Walford  (in  his  Insurance  Guide  and  Handbook) 
compiled  a  list  of  218  centenarians  from  what  he  deemed  authentic 
sources,  and  J.  B.  Bailey  in  1888  in  his  Modern  Methuselahs  discussed  the 
question;  while  Humphry  (1889)  in  his  nine  hundred  returns,  found  52 
centenarians,  36  of  whom  were  women. 

51 


SENESCENCE 

also  hindrances,  so  that  the  forces  of  evolution  have 
spent  their  power. 

The  Hebrew  conception  of  Yahveh  generally  made 
him  old,  the  ancient  of  days  without  beginning  or  end; 
and  the  art  of  early  Christendom  where  God  the  Father 
appears,  usually  represents  Him  as  venerable  with  age, 
this  trait  being  probably  accentuated  by  contrast  with 
His  son,  Jesus,  who  died  in  the  prime  of  life.  The 
ancient  Hebrews  had  great  respect  for  age,  and  many 
Biblical  heroes  from  Abraham  to  Moses  and  some  of 
the  prophets  were  old  in  years  and  wisdom.  The  ex- 
hortation was  to  rise  up  before  the  hoary  head  and  honor 
the  face  of  the  old  man,  and  this  has  its  nursery  echo  in 
the  story  of  Elisha  (II,  Kings,  2:23-24)  whom  little 
children  came  out  of  the  city  and  mocked,  saying  "Go 
up,  thou  bald-head."  He  "turned  back  and  cursed  them 
in  the  name  of  the  Lord,  and  there  came  forth  two  she- 
bears  out  of  the  wood  and  tare  forty  and  two  children 
of  them."  No  passage  in  all  the  literature  of  the  world 
has  had  such  influence  as  Psalms  90 :  io.17  It  is  pathetic 
to  see  how  incessantly  this  passage  is  quoted  in  the  liter- 
ature on  old  age  and  how  not  only  among  the  Jews  but 
perhaps  quite  as  much,  if  not  more,  among  the  Chris- 
tians, bibliolatry  has  made  it  accepted  almost  as  a  decree 
of  fate. 

Next  most  influential  is  the  pessimistic  view  of 
senescence  represented  in  Ecclesiastes,  12:  1-8.  We 
quote  Professor  Paul  Haupt's  version,18  with  his  explana- 
tions in  parentheses : 

Remember  thy  well  (the  wife  and  mother  of  thy  children)  in 
the  days  of  thy  vigor,  ere  there  come  the  days  of  evil,  and  the 
years  draw  nigh  in  which  thou  wilt  say  I  have  no  pleasure.  Ere 

*  "The  days  of  our  years  are  three-score  years  and  ten,  and  if  by  reason 
of  strength  they  may  be  four-score  years,  yet  is  there  strength,  labor,  and 
sorrow  for  it  is  cut  off  and  we  fly  away." 

M  Oriental  Studies,  Boston,  1894. 

52 


THE  HISTORY  OF  OLD  AGE 

is  darkened  the  sun  (sunshine  of  childhood),  and  the  light  of  the 
day,  and  the  moon  (more  tempered  light  of  boyhood  and  early 
manhood),  and  the  stars  (the  sporadic  moments  of  happiness  in 
mature  age),  and  the  clouds  return  after  the  rain  (for  the  old, 
clouds  and  rainy  days  increase)  ;  when  the  keepers  of  the  house 
(hands)  tremble,  and  the  men  of  power  (the  bones,  especially 
the  backbone)  bend  themselves;  the  grinding  maids  (teeth)  cease 
and  the  ladies  that  look  out  through  the  lattices  (eyes)  are  dark- 
ened; the  doors  are  shut  toward  the  street  (secretion  and  excre- 
tion cease) ;  he  riseth  at  the  voice  of  the  birds  (awakens  too 
early),  and  all  the  daughters  of  song  are  brought  low  (grows 
deaf),  he  is  afraid  of  that  which  is  high,  and  fears  are  in  the 
way  (avoids  climbing  and  high  places)  ;  the  almond  tree  blossom- 
eth  (he  grows  gray),  the  locust  crawleth  along  with  difficulty,  the 
caper-berry  breaketh  up  (the  soul  is  freed),  the  silver  (spinal) 
cord  is  snapped  asunder,  the  golden  bowl  (brain)  crushed  in,  the 
bucket  at  the  well  smashed  (heart  grows  weak),  and  the  wheel 
breaketh  down  at  the  pit  (machinery  runs  down).  Man  is  going 
to  his  eternal  house  (the  grave),  and  the  mourners  go  about  in 
the  street.  Vanity  of  vanities  (all  is  transitory),  saith  Ecclesiastes, 
all  is  vanity,  and  all  that  is  coming  is  vanity. 

L.  Low  19  collects  from  the  Scripture  and  post-Biblical 
Talmud,  German  and  other  literature,  instances  of  re- 
juvenescence in  the  old  which  ancient  Hebrew  writers 
seem  to  have  stressed.  We  all  know  that  sight  some- 
times comes  back,  perhaps  to  a  marked  degree,  but  Low 
quotes  cases  where  wrinkles  vanished,  the  hair  was 
restored  to  its  youthful  shade  and  increased  in  quantity, 
while  teeth,  after  years  of  decay,  have  sometimes  grown 
from  new  roots — occasionally  more  than  once.  In  many 
cases  sex  potency  has  been  restored  as  well  as  muscular 
strength,  freshness  of  complexion,  and,  more  rarely, 
hearing.  Myths,  of  course,  of  many  races  detail  cases 
where  magic  sleep  lasting  many,  perhaps  a  hundred, 
years  has  converted  age  into  youth,  and  in  Semitic  folk- 
lore this  is  often  connected  with  the  passage,  "The 
righteous  shall  renew  their  strength  like  the  eagle."  The 

'Das  Lebensalter  in  der  Jiidischen  Literatur,  1875. 

53 


SENESCENCE 

Hebrews  were  perhaps  even  more  fond  than  other 
people  of  dividing  life  into  periods,  usually  in  conform- 
ity to  the  magic  numbers  3,  4,  7,  etc.  The  comparison 
of  age  with  the  four  seasons  was  very  common,  and 
here  we  may  perhaps  mention  Lotze's  effort  to  har- 
monize the  life  span  with  the  four  temperaments.  For 
him,  childhood  is  sanguine  on  account  of  the  ease  of 
excitation,  the  keenness  of  response  to  sensation,  the 
ready  passage  of  impulse  to  action,  and  the  fluctuations 
of  mood.  Youth  he  calls  melancholic  and  emotionally 
characterized  by  Stimmungen.  It  judges  the  items  of 
experience  by  their  effect  upon  feeling  and  upon  self, 
and  oscillates  readily  and  widely  from  pleasure  to  pain. 
Mature  manhood  is  choleric,  practical,  executive,  with 
definiteness  of  aim  and  fulfillment  of  ideas  and  even 
phantasies  but  with  less  excitability  of  emotion;  while 
old  age  is  phlegmatic,  seeks  repose,  and  has  been  taught 
by  experience  to  abate  the  life  of  affectivity  and  take  the 
attitude  of  laisses  faire. 

In  the  modern  Jewish  family  the  authority  of  and 
respect  for  the  father  is  great,  more  among  the  orthodox 
and  conservative  than  the  liberal  and  reformed  wing  of 
Judaism.  The  grandfather  and  -mother  are  always  pro- 
vided for,  although  their  authority  and  influence  are 
generally  greatly  diminished. 

Perhaps  mention  should  here  be  made  of  the  very 
interesting  medieval  legend  of  Ahasuerus,  the  Wander- 
ing Jew,  although  it  is  of  Christian  origin.  This  cobbler, 
past  whose  shop  Jesus  bore  the  Cross  on  the  way  to 
Calvary,  reproached  Him,  and  Jesus,  turning,  sentenced 
him  to  "tarry  till  I  come,"  which  meant  that  his  punish- 
ment was  to  remain  alive  on  earth  until  the  second  com- 
ing of  the  Messiah.  In  some  of  the  many  forms  of  this 
tradition  he  is  represented  at  the  time  as  being  of  about 
Jesus'  age  and  every  time  he  reached  a  hundred  as  being 
set  back  again  to  this  stage  of  life;  while  in  others  he  is 

54 


THE  HISTORY  OF  OLD  AGE 

described  with  ever  increasing  symptoms  of  age,  and 
in  Dore's  illustrations  he  is  depicted  as  wandering  the 
earth,  appearing  here  and  there  and,  when  recognized, 
generally  mysteriously  vanishing,  ever  seeking  death, 
visiting  graveyards  and  regions  smitten  with  plague  and 
famine,  rushing  into  the  melee  of  battles,  etc. — but  all  in 
vain.  He  longs  with  an  ever  increasing  passion  to  pay 
the  debt  of  nature  but  is  unable  to  do  so  and  must  rove 
the  earth  until  the  Judgment  Day,  when  he  hopes  his 
penalty  may  be  remitted  and  that  he  may  keep  some 
"rendezvous  with  Death."  20 

In  ancient  Greece  we  may  begin  with  Sparta  and  its 
very  unique  gerousia,  the  council  of  twenty-eight  old 
men  who  must  be  over  sixty,  when  the  duty  to  bear  arms 
ceased  and  when  by  the  original  law  of  Sparta  men  were 
put  to  death.  This  council  of  old  men  at  the  height  of  its 
power  is  sometimes  compared  with  that  of  the  boule  in 
Athens  but  was  even  greater,  for  although  it  held  its 
mandate  from  the  people  and  its  members  were  annually 
elected,  they  could  depose  the  five  ephors  and  the  kings 
and  even  cause  them  to  be  put  to  death.  J.  P.  Mahaffy 21 
condemns  the  parochial  politics  of  Sparta,  where  igno- 
rant old  men  watched  over  and  secured  the  closest 
adhesion  of  the  state  to  the  system  of  a  semifabulous 
legislator,  and  compares  the  rigidity  of  the  Spartan  sys- 
tem, not  based  on  written  laws,  with  the  effects  of 
excessive  reverence  of  ancestors  in  China  in  retarding 
progress.22  He  thinks  that  here  we  have  "one  of  the 

."M.  D.  Conway,  The  Wandering  Jew,  1881,  and  T.  Kappstein, 
Ahesver  in  der  Weltpoesie,  1906. 

21  Greek  Life  and  Thought,  London,  1896. 

33  E.  Bard,  in  Chinese  Life  in  Town  and  Country,  p.  39,  says,  "In  the 
worship  of  ancestors  we  have  the  keystone  to  the  arch  of  the  social 
structure  of  this  strange  country  [China].  Hundreds  of  millions  of 
living  Chinese  are  bound  to  thousands  of  millions  of  dead  ones.  The 
cult  induces  parents  to  marry  off  their  children  almost  before  maturity  so 
that  they  should  have  offspring  to  make  their  lives  after  death  pleasant 
by  means  of  worship  and  oblations.  No  matter  how  great  the  squalor, 

55 


SENESCENCE 

most  signal  instances  in  history  of  the  vast  mischief 
done  by  the  government  of  old  men.  All  the  leading 
patriots,  nay  all  the  leading  politicians,  were  past  their 
prime.  There  was  not  a  single  young  man  of  ability 
taking  part  in  public  affairs."  This,  he  thinks,  was  more 
or  less  true  of  Athens  in  the  early  days,  and  he  goes  on  to 
say  that  if  any  young  orator  tried  to  advance  new  ideas, 
the  old  masters,  who  had  the  ear  of  the  assembly,  were 
out  upon  him  as  a  hireling  and  traitor  so  that  he  had  to 
retire  from  the  agora  into  private  life,  and  some  were 
thus  driven  into  exile.  He  even  holds  that  the  sudden 
growth  of  the  philosophic  schools  a  little  later  was  due 
to  the  activities  that  but  for  this  diversion  would  have 
been  directed  to  politics. 

But  in  Greece  at  its  best  opposite  influences  were  at 
work  and  generally  predominated.  In  the  Homeric  age 
"the  king  or  chief,  as  soon  as  his  bodily  vigor  passed 
away,  was  apparently  pushed  aside  by  younger  and 
stronger  men.  He  might  either  maintain  himself  by 
extraordinary  usefulness,  like  Nestor,  or  be  supported 
by  his  children,  if  they  chanced  to  be  affectionate  and 
dutiful;  but  except  in  these  cases  his  lot  was  sad  in- 
deed." '  Achilles  laments  that  nearby  chiefs  are  ill- 
treating  the  aged  Peleus,  and  we  see  Laertes,  the  father 
of  Ulysses,  exiled  to  a  barren  farm  in  the  country  and 
spending  the  later  years  of  his  life  in  poverty  and  hard- 
ship. Hence  when  we  see  princes  who  had  sons  that 
might  return  any  day  to  avenge  them  treated  in  such  a 
way,  we  must  infer  that  unprotected  old  age  commanded 

there  must  be  many  children  in  the  family,"  etc.  "Funeral  expenses  for 
parents  are  the  most  sacred  of  all  obligations,  and  it  is  not  uncommon  for 
the  living  to  sell  their  estates  to  the  very  last  foot  and  often  their  houses 
to  be  able  to  render  proper  homage  to  the  deceased."  Presents  of  coffins, 
elaborate  ones,  are  often  very  common.  The  sons  of  a  deceased  parent 
must  at  least  wear  mourning  for  three  years,  though  this  has  been  lately 
reduced  to  twenty-seven  months.  The  expenses  of  elaborate  funerals 
are  enormous. 
*  Mahaffy,  Social  Life  in  Greece  from  Homer  to  Menander,  p.  34. 

56 


THE  HISTORY  OF  OLD  AGE 

very  little  veneration  among  the  Homeric  Greeks,  so  that 
worn-out  men  received  scant  consideration.  Among 
friends  and  neighbors  in  peace  and  in  good  humor  they 
were  treated  with  consideration,  but  with  the  first  clash 
of  interests  all  this  vanished.  Interference  of  the  gods 
to  protect  their  weakness  was  no  longer  believed  in. 
Thus  the  exact  prescription  of  the  conduct  of  the  young 
toward  the  elders  in  Sparta  was  an  exception,  and  their 
treatment  of  old  age  as  illustrated  by  the  well-worn  storyi 
of  an  old  man  coming  into  the  theater  at  Athens  and 
looking  in  vain  for  a  seat  until  he  came  near  the  Spartan 
embassy,  which  at  once  rose  and  made  room  for  him, 
was  suggestive.  It  was  well  added  that  while  the 
Athenians  applauded  this  act  it  is  doubtful  if  they  imi- 
tated it.  Probably  the  disparagement  of  old  age 
prompted  Athenian  gentlemen  to  resort  to  every  means 
to  prolong  their  youth.  Zeus  came  to  rule  the  turbulent 
and  self-willed  lesser  gods  on  Olympus,  who  were  per- 
petually trying  to  evade  and  thwart  him,  by  occasionally 
terrifying  them,  and  he  seemed  to  be  able  to  count  on 
no  higher  principle  of  loyalty. 

The  Greeks  loved  wealth  because  it  gave  pleasure,  and 
perhaps  in  this  fact  we  have  one  key  to  another  horror 
that  old  age  had  for  them.  Mimnermus  tells  us  to  enjoy 
the  delights  of  love,  for  "when  old  age  with  its  pains 
comes  upon  us  it  mars  even  the  fair,  wretched  cares  be- 
siege the  mind ;  nor  do  we  delight  in  beholding  the  rays 
of  the  sun  but  are  hateful  to  boys  and  despised  among 
women,  so  sore  a  burden  have  the  gods  made  old  age." 
"When  youth  has  fled,  short-lived  as  a  dream,  forthwith 
this  burdensome  and  hideous  old  age  looms  over  us  hate- 
ful and  dishonored,  which  changes  the  fashion  of  man's 
countenance,  marring  his  sight  and  his  mind  with  its 
mist."  Pindar  asks  why  those  who  must  of  necessity 
meet  the  fate  of  death  should  desire  "to  sit  in  obscurity 
vainly  brooding  through  a  forgotten  old  age  without 

57 


SENESCENCE 

sharing  a  single  blessing."  He  and  Aeschylus  take  a 
somewhat  less  unfavorable  view  of  age,  although  even 
Pindar  calls  it  "detested."  Sophocles  is  the  only  drama- 
tist who,  at  least  in  one  passage,  welcomes  its  approach, 
although  there  are  nowhere  bitterer  words  concerning 
it  than  those  of  the  chorus  of  CEdipus  at  Coloneus,  "That 
is  the  final  lot  of  man,  even  old  age,  hateful,  impotent, 
unsociable,  friendless,  wherein  all  evil  of  evil  dwells." 
Thus,  in  general,  Greek  writers  take  a  very  gloomy  view 
of  it,  never  calling  it  beautiful,  peaceful,  or  mellow,  but 
rather  dismal  and  oppressive.  The  best  they  say  of  it  is 
that  it  brings  wisdom. 

R.  W.  Livingstone 24  says : 

When  youth  wore  away,  he  [the  Greek]  felt  that  what  made 
life  most  worth  living  was  gone.  In  part  perhaps  it  was  that  old 
age  had  terrors  for  the  Greeks  which  we  do  not  feel.  They  were 
without  eyeglasses,  ear-trumpets,  bath-chairs,  and  an  elaborate 
system  of  aperitifs,  which  modern  science  has  devised  to  assist 
our  declining  years.  Yet  even  with  these  consolations  it  may  be 
doubted  whether  the  Greek  would  have  faced  old  age  with  pleas- 
ure. At  least  to  judge  from  Greek  literature,  he  lamented  its 
minor  discomforts  less  than  the  loss  of  youth's  intense  capacity 
for  action  and  enjoyment.  People  who  prize  beauty  and  health 
so  highly  can  hardly  think  otherwise  when  age  comes. 

Again,  old  men  in  Greece  had  to  contend  with  the 
younger  generation  upon  even  terms  and  without  the 
large  allowance  conceded  them  by  modern  sentiment  and 
good  manners.  At  Athens  legal  proceedings  of  children 
to  secure  the  property  of  their  parents  were  very  com- 
mon— and  that,  too,  without  medical  evidence  of  in- 
capacity. Aristophanes  complains  of  the  treatment  of 
older  men  by  the  newer  generation  and  in  his  Wasps 
makes  an  old  man  say  that  his  only  chance  of  respect  or 
even  safety  is  to  retain  the  power  of  acting  as  a  juryman, 

*  The  Greek  Genius  and  Its  Meaning  to  Us,  1912. 
58 


THE  HISTORY  OF  OLD  AGE 

so  exacting  homage  from  the  accused  and  supporting 
himself  by  his  pay  without  depending  on  his  children. 
When  he  comes  home  with  his  fee  they  are  glad  to  see 
him.  Indeed,  thus  he  might  support  a  second  wife  and 
younger  children  and  not  be  dependent  for  his  daily 
bread  upon  his  son's  steward.  In  the  tragedies  the  old 
kings  are  represented  as  acquiescing,  though  not  without 
complaint,  in  the  weakness  of  their  position  and  submit- 
ting to  insults  from  foes  and  rivals.  There  seems  no 
such  thing  as  patient  submission  for  an  aged  sovereign. 
Nor  did  his  own  excellence  nor  the  score  of  former 
battles  secure  for  him  the  allegiance  of  his  people  when 
his  vigor  had  passed.  This  was  all  because  in  spite  of 
the  modicum  of  respect  that  all  must  yield  to  old  age  at 
its  best,  the  violent  nature  of  the  Periclean  politics  and 
the  warlike  temper  of  early  days  made  vigor  in  their 
leaders  a  necessity.  The  nation  was  strong,  always 
seeking  to  advance  and  enlarge,  and  its  maxim  seemed 
to  be  that  of  Hesiod,  "Work  for  youth;  counsel  for 
maturity;  prayers  for  old  age."  The  Greeks,  realizing 
the  danger  of  relying  too  much  upon  experience  as  the 
source  of  wisdom,  saw  that  when  the  maturity  of  age  is 
passed  and  the  power  of  decision  begins  to  wane,  trust- 
ing to  the  leadership  of  the  old  may  be  dangerous.  By  a 
law  often  relied  on,  old  men  could  be  brought  into  court 
by  their  children  and  be  found  incapable  of  managing 
their  property,  which  was  then  transferred  to  their 
heirs;  and  this  helps  to  explain  why  sometimes  old 
people,  beginning  to  feel  their  uselessness,  committed 
suicide  rather  than  become  an  encumbrance. 
Plato 25  makes  one  of  his  characters  say : 

I  and  a  few  other  people  of  my  own  age  are  in  the  habit  of 
frequently  meeting  together.  On  these  occasions  most  of  us  give 
way  to  lamentations  and  regret  the  pleasures  of  youth,  and  call 

86  Republic,  329. 

59 


SENESCENCE 

up  the  memory  of  love  affairs,  drinking  parties,  and  similar  pro- 
ceedings. They  are  grievously  discontented  at  the  loss  of  what 
they  consider  great  privileges  and  describe  themselves  as  having 
lived  well  in  those  days  whereas  now  they  can  hardly  be  said  to 
live  at  all.  Some  also  complain  of  the  manner  in  which  their 
relations  insult  their  infirmities  or  make  this  a  ground  for  re- 
proaching old  age  with  the  many  miseries  it  occasions  them. 

Plato  did  not  himself  agree  with  this  view  but  thought 
the  cause  of  this  discontent  lay  not  in  age  itself  but  in 
character.  Still  the  humanist  view  of  life  does  tend  to 
some  such  position,  and  the  Greeks  really  felt  that  it  was 
better  to  be  the  humblest  citizen  of  Athens  than  to  rule 
in  Hades. 

Two  unique  characters  stand  out  with  great  clearness 
and  significance.  The  first  is  that  of  the  Homeric 
Nestor,  who  had  lived  through  three  generations  of  men 
and  in  whom  Anthon  says  Homer  intended  to  exemplify 
the  greatest  perfection  of  which  human  nature  is  ca- 
pable. His  wisdom  was  great,  as  was  his  age,  and  both 
grew  together.  In  his  earlier  years  he  had  been  as  great 
in  war  as  he  became  in  counsel  later.  Very  different  is 
the  figure  of  Tithonus,  whom  Tennyson  has  made  the 
theme  of  one  of  his  oft-quoted  poems.  He  was  a  mortal, 
the  son  of  a  king,  but  Aurora  became  so  enamored  of 
him  that  she  besought  Zeus  to  confer  upon  him  the  gift 
of  immortality.  The  ruler  of  Olympus  granted  her 
prayer  and  Tithonus  became  exempt  from  death.  But 
the  goddess  had  forgotten  to  crave  youth  along  with 
immortality  and  accordingly,  after  his  children  had  been 
born,  old  age  slowly  began  to  mar  the  visage  and  form 
of  her  lover  and  spouse.  When  she  saw  him  thus  declin- 
ing she  still  remained  true  to  him,  kept  him  "in  her 
palace,  on  the  eastern  margin  of  the  Ocean  stream,  'giv- 
ing him  ambrosial  food  and  fair  garments/  But  when 
he  was  no  longer  able  to  move  his  limbs  she  deemed  it 
the  wisest  course  to  shut  him  up  in  his  chamber,  whence 

60 


THE  HISTORY  OF  OLD  AGE 

his  feeble  voice  was  incessantly  heard.  Later  poets  say 
that  out  of  compassion  she  turned  him  into  a  cicada." 

It  is  gratifying  to  turn  from  the  depressing  attitude 
toward  old  age  that  was  characteristic  of  the  Hellenic 
mind  as  a  whole,  because  it  came  nearer  than  any  other 
to  being  the  embodiment  of  eternal  youth,  and  to  glance 
at  the  unique  and,  we  must  believe  on  the  whole,  very 
wholesome  and  suggestive  relation  that  so  often  sub- 
sisted between  men,  not  to  be  sure  very  old  (unless  in  the 
case  of  Socrates)  but  aging  and  young  men  and  even 
boys. 

It  was  assumed  that  every  well-born  and  -bred  young 
male  must  have  an  older  man  as  his  mentor  and  to  be 
without  one  was,  to  some  degree,  regarded  as  discredit- 
able. Thus  juniors  sometimes  came  to  vie  with  each 
other  in  their  efforts  to  win  the  regard  of  their  seniors, 
especially  if  they  were  prominent;  while  the  latter,  in 
turn,  felt  that  it  was  a  part  of  their  duty  to  the  com- 
munity and  to  the  state  to  respond  to  such  advances,  even 
to  make  them.  These  friendships  between  ephebics  and 
sages  were,  at  their  best,  highly  advantageous  to  both. 
The  man  embodied  the  boy's  ideal  at  that  stage  of  life 
when  he  realized  that  all  excellencies  were  not  embodied 
in  his  father  and  when  home  relations  were  merging  into 
those  of  citizenship.  To  win  the  personal  attention  and 
interest  of  a  great  man  who  would  occasionally  exercise 
the  function  of  teacher,  foster  parent,  guardian,  god- 
father, adviser,  or  patron,  brought  not  only  advantage 
but  distinction  if  the  youth  was  noble  and  beautiful.  On 
the  other  hand,  Plato  thought  no  man  would  wish  to  do 
or  say  a  discreditable  thing  in  the  presence  of  a  youth 
who  admired  him  but  would  wish  to  be  a  pattern  or 
inspirer  of  virtue.  He  seems  to  have  been  the  first  to 
realize  that  there  is  really  nothing  in  the  world  quite  so 
worthy  of  love,  reverence,  and  service,  as  ingenuous 
youth  fired  with  the  right  ambitions  and  smitten  with 

61 


SENESCENCE 

a  passion  to  both  know  and  be  the  best  possible.  The 
period  between  the  dawn  of  sex  and  complete  nubility 
has  always  been  the  chief  opportunity  of  the  true  teacher 
or  initiator  of  its  apprentice  into  life. 

Here  we  must  recall  the  very  pregnant  sense  in  which, 
as  I  have  tried  in  my  Adolescence  to  set  forth  at  greater 
length,  education  in  its  various  implications  began  in  the 
initiations  of  youth  by  their  elders  into  the  pubertal 
stage  of  life  and  slowly  extended  upward  toward  the 
university,  and  downward  toward  the  kindergarten,  as 
civilization  advanced.  The  world  has  always  felt  that 
these  pre-marital  years,  when  the  young  have  such 
peculiar  needs  and  are  subjected  to  so  many  dangers,  are 
the  great  opportunity  for  the  transmission  of  knowledge 
and  influence  from  the  older  to  the  younger  generation. 

Thus  while  Socrates  loved  to  mingle  with  men  of  all 
classes  and  ages,  his  most  congenial  companions  were 
those  of  a  younger  generation.  With  the  gracious  boy, 
Charmides,  "beautiful  in  mind  and  body,  a  charming 
combination  of  moral  dignity  and  artless  sprightliness," 
he  discussed  temperance  in  the  presence  of  his  guardian, 
Critias.  With  Theaetetus,  "the  younger  Socrates,"  like 
his  master  more  beautiful  in  mind  than  in  body,  he  con- 
versed about  the  nature  of  knowledge,  in  the  presence 
of  his  tutor.  With  the  fair  and  noble  young  Lysis, 
invoked  to  do  so  by  his  lover,  Hypothales,  he  discourses 
on  the  right  words  or  acts  best  calculated  to  ingratiate 
himself  with  his  ward,  and  the  theme  is  friendship.  In 
the  presence  and  with  the  cooperation  of  four  youths  he 
discusses  courage  with  General  Laches,  and  to  young 
Clineas  and  his  adviser  he  narrates  his  amusing  en- 
counter with  Euthydemus  and  his  brother,  the  bump- 
tious young  Sophists,  the  "eristic  sluggers."  He  explains 
the  true  nature  of  his  own  art  to  Ion,  the  Homeric 
rhapsodist.  In  the  Meno  he  brings  out  the  essential 

62 


THE  HISTORY  OF  OLD  AGE 

points  of  the  forty-seventh  proposition  of  Euclid  from 
the  mind  of  an  ignorant  slave  boy.28 

This  relation  of  old  and  younger  men  was  thought  to 
keep  youth  plastic,  docile,  and  receptive,  if  not  a  trifle 
feminine.  Plato  would  have  these  pairs  of  friends  fight 
side  by  side  to  inspire  each  other  with  courage.  But  this 
relation,  as  we  all  know,  had  its  dangers  and  often  lapsed 
to  homosexuality  and  inversion.  In  the  Symposium, 
Alcibiades,  that  most  beautiful  and  alluring  of  male 
coquettes,  describes  Socrates  as  a  paragon  of  chastity 
because  he  remained  cold  and  unmoved  by  all  the  seduc- 
tive blandishments  he  could  bring  to  bear  upon  him. 
This  vice,  now  so  fully  explored  by  Krafft-Ebing,  Tar- 
nowski,  Moll,  Ellis,  and  Freud  and  his  disciples,  is 
favored  by  war,  the  seclusion  of  women  as  in  Turkey, 
and  even  by  female  virtue;  but  the  Platonic  view  was 
that  true  love  was  a  wisdom  or  philosophy,  although 
possibly  they  did  not  realize  that  even  the  custom  of  the 
Sophists,  who  first  took  pay  for  teaching — a  practice 
they  thought  profanation— was  nevertheless  a  step  to- 
ward the  reform  of  degraded  boy  love. 

The  chief  function  of  wise  and  older  men  toward  their 
juniors,  they  thought,  was  to  prevent  the  premature 
hardening  of  opinions  into  convictions  and  to  keep  their 
minds  open  and  growing.  As  we  now  often  say  that  the 
chief  function  of  religion  and  sex  is  to  keep  each  other 
pure,  so  they  thought  that  wisdom  culminated  in  eros, 
which  in  turn  found  its  highest  deployment  in  the  love  of 
knowledge,  which  Aristotle  later  described  as  the  the- 
oretic life,  the  attainment  of  which  he  deemed  the 
supreme  felicity  of  man.  From  all  this  it  follows  that 
those  who  achieve  complete  ideal  senescence  are  those 
who  have  entirely  sublimated  eroticism  into  the  passion 
for  truth  and  pursue  it  with  the  same  ardor  that  in  their 

*  Talks  with  Athenian  Youth,  tr.  anon.,  New  York,  1893,  178  p. 
63 


SENESCENCE 

prime  attracted  them  to  the  most  beautiful  of  the  other 
sex;  and  that  their  chief  function  to  the  next  generation 
is  to  lay  in  it  the  foundations  for  the  same  gradual  trans- 
fer and  transformation  of  it  as  old  age  advances. 

Aristotle's  2T  physical  theory  of  old  age  is  that  heat  is 
lost  by  gradual  dissipation,  very  little  remaining  in  old 
age — a  flickering  flame  that  a  slight  disturbance  could 
put  out.  The  lung  hardens  by  gradual  evaporation  of 
the  fluid  and  so  is  unable  to  perform  its  office  of  heat 
regulation.  He  assumes  that  heat  is  gradually  devel- 
oped in  the  heart.  The  amount  produced  is  always  some- 
what less  than  that  which  is  given  off  and  the  deficiency 
has  to  be  made  good  out  of  the  stock  with  which  the 
organism  started  originally,  that  is,  from  the  innate 
heat  in  which  the  soul  was  incorporate.  This  eventually 
is  so  reduced  by  constant  draughts  made  upon  it  that  it 
is  insufficient  to  support  the  soul.  The  natural  span  of 
life,  he  says,  differs  greatly  in  length  in  different  species, 
due  to  material  constitution  and  the  degree  of  harmony 
with  the  environment.  But  still,  as  a  general  rule,  big 
plants  and  animals  live  longer  than  smaller  ones;  san- 
guineous or  vertebrates  longer  than  invertebrates;  the 
more  perfect  longer  than  the  less  perfect;  and  long 
gestation  generally  goes  with  long  duration.  Thus  bulk, 
degree  of  organization,  period  of  gestation,  are  corre- 
lated. Great  size  goes  with  high  organization. 

In  his  Rhetoric™  as  is  well  known,  Aristotle  gives  old 
age  an  unfavorable  aspect.  He  says  in  substance  that 
the  old  have  lived  many  years  and  been  often  the  victims 
of  deception,  and  since  vice  is  the  rule  rather  than  the 
exception  in  human  affairs,  they  are  never  positive  about 
anything.  They  "suppose"  and  add  "perhaps"  or  "pos- 
sibly," always  expressing  themselves  in  doubt  and  never 

•  Aristotle  on  Youth  and  Old  Age,  Life  and  Death  and  Respiration,  tr. 
by  Ogle,  London,  1897,  135  p. 
"  Book  II,  Chap.  13. 

64 


THE  HISTORY  OF  OLD  AGE 

positively.  They  are  uncharitable  and  ever  ready  to  put 
the  worst  construction  upon  everything.  They  are  sus- 
picious of  evil,  not  trusting,  because  of  their  experience 
of  human  weakness.  Hence  they  have  no  strong  loves 
or  hates  but  go  according  to  the  precept  of  bias.  Their 
love  is  such  as  may  one  day  become  hate  and  their  hatred 
such  as  may  one  day  become  love.  The  temper  of  mind 
is  neither  grand  nor  generous — not  the  former  because 
they  have  been  too  much  humiliated  and  have  no  desire 
to  go  according  to  anything  but  mere  appearances,  and 
not  the  latter  because  property  is  a  necessity  of  life  and 
they  have  learned  the  difficulty  of  acquiring  it  and  the 
facility  with  which  it  may  be  lost.  They  are  cowards 
and  perpetual  alarmists,  exactly  contrary  to  the  young; 
not  fervent,  but  cold.  They  are  never  so  fond  of  life 
as  on  their  last  day.  Again,  it  is  the  absent  which  is  the 
object  of  all  desire,  and  what  they  most  lack  they  most 
want.  They  are  selfish  and  inclined  to  expediency  rather 
than  honor ;  the  former  having  to  do  with  the  individual 
and  the  latter  being  absolute.  They  are  apt  to  be  shame- 
less rather  than  the  contrary  and  are  prone  to  disregard 
appearances.  They  are  dependent  for  most  things. 
They  live  in  memory  rather  than  by  hope,  for  the  re- 
mainder of  their  life  is  short  while  the  past  is  long,  and 
.-this  explains  their  garrulity.  Their  fits  of  passion 
though  violent  are  feeble.  Their  sensual  desires  have 
either  died  or  become  feeble  but  they  are  regulated 
chiefly  by  self-interest.  Hence  they  are  capable  of  self- 
control,  because  desires  have  abated  and  self-interest  is 
their  leading  passion.  Calculation  has  a  character  that 
regulates  their  lives,  for  while  calculation  is  directed  to 
expediency,  morality  is  directed  to  virtue  as  its  end. 
Their  offenses  are  those  of  petty  meanness  rather  than 
of  insolence.  They  are  compassionate  like  the  young, 
but  the  latter  are  so  from  humanity  while  the  old  sup- 
pose all  manner  of  sufferings  at  their  door.  When  the 

65 


SENESCENCE 

orator  addresses  them  he  should  bear  these  traits  in 
mind.  Elsewhere 20  he  says  a  happy  old  age  is  one  that 
approaches  gradually  and  without  pain  and  is  dependent 
upon  physical  excellence  and  on  fortune,  although  there 
is  such  a  thing  as  a  long  life  even  without  health  and 
strength. 

Thus,  on  the  whole,  the  Greeks  took  a  very  somber 
view  of  old  age.  They  prized  youth  as  perhaps  no  other 
race  has  ever  done  and  loved  to  heighten  their  apprecia- 
tion of  it  by  contrasting  it  with  life  in  its  "sere  and  yel- 
low leaf."  Pindar  says  in  substance  that  darkness,  old 
age,  and  death  never  seemed  so  black  as  by  contrast  with 
the  glories  of  the  great  festivals  and  games  which  every 
few  years  brought  together  all  those  who  loved  either 
gold  or  glory.  Socrates,  who  refused  to  flee  from  his 
fate  and  calmly  drank  hemlock  at  the  age  of  seventy,  and 
Plato,  who  lived  to  be  an  octogenarian,  must,  on  the 
whole,  be  regarded  as  exceptions,  and  conceptions  of  a 
future  life  were  never  clear  and  strong  enough  to  be  of 
much  avail  against  the  pessimism  that  in  bright  Hellas 
clouded  the  closing  scenes  of  life's  drama. 

When  we  turn  to  Rome,  we  have,  on  the  whole,  a  more 
favorable  view.  Even  in  the  early  stages  of  Roman  life, 
family  and  parental  authority  were  well  developed  and 
in  Roman  law  the  patria  potestas  gave  the  head  of  the 
family  great  dignity  and  power.  This  term  designates 
the  aggregate  of  those  peculiar  powers  and  rights  that, 
by  the  civil  law  of  Rome,  belonged  to  the  head  of  a  fam- 
ily in  respect  to  his  wife,  children  (natural  or  adopted) 
and  more  remote  descendants  who  sprang  from  him 
through  males  only.  Anciently  it  was  of  very  extensive 
scope,  embracing  even  the  power  of  life  and  death;  but 
this  was  greatly  curtailed  until  finally  it  meant  but  little 
more  than  a  right  of  the  paterfamilias  to  hold  his  own 

"Ibid.,  Book  I,  Chap.  5- 

66 


THE  HISTORY  OF  OLD  AGE 

property  or  the  acquisitions  of  one  under  his  power.80 
The  Roman  Senate  was,  as  the  etymology  of  the  word 
suggests,  a  body  of  old  men ;  and  as  the  Romans  had  an 
unprecedented  genius  for  social  and  political  organiza- 
tion, the  wisdom  necessary  for  exercising  successfully 
administrative  functions,  which  age  alone  can  give,  had 
greater  scope.  In  this  respect  the  Catholic  Church  later 
and  its  canon  law  were  profoundly  influenced  by  and, 
indeed,  as  Zeller  has  shown  in  his  remarkable  essay  on 
the  subject,  derived  most  of  its  prominent  features  di- 
rectly from  the  political  organization  of  ancient  Rome, 
also  giving  great  authority  to  presbyters,  elders,  and 
affording  exceptional  scope  to  the  organizing  ability  that 
comes  to  its  flower  in  later  life.  Jesus  was  young  and 
Keim  believes  that  all  His  disciples  were  even  younger. 
Those  who  created  ecclesiastical  institutions,  however, 
were  far  older. 

In  Cicero's  De  Senectute 31  we  have  a  remarkably 
representative  statement  put  into  the  mouth  of  the  old 
man,  Cato,  as  to  how  aging  Romans  regarded  their 
estate,  and  I  think  the  chief  impression  in  reading  this 
remarkable  document  is  the  vast  fund  of  instances  of 
signal  achievements  of  old  men  that  are  here  brought 
together.  This  will  be  apparent  from  the  following  brief 
resume. 

Cato  in  his  old  age  is  approached  by  youths  who 
want  to  know  what  he  can  tell  them  about  life.  He  com- 
mends their  interest  in  age  and  tells  them  he  has  himself 
just  begun  to  learn  Greek,  on  which  he  spent  much  time 
in  later  years.  After  the  first  few  pages  the  treatise 
becomes  almost  entirely  a  monologue  of  Cato.  Every 
state  is  irksome  to  those  who  have  no  support  within  and 
do  not  see  that  they  owe  happiness  to  themselves.  We 
must  not  say  old  age  creeps  on  after  manhood,  manhood 

10  See  Black's  Law  Dictionary,  2d  ed.,  1910. 

11  Cicero,  Cato  Major  or  Old  Age,  tr.  by  Benjamin  Franklin. 

67 


SENESCENCE 

after  youth,  youth  after  childhood,  etc.  Each  age  has  its 
own  interests — spring  for  blossoms,  autumn  for  fruit. 
The  wise  submit  and  do  not,  like  the  giants,  war  against 
the  gods.  There  are  very  many  instances  of  those  who 
outlived  enjoyment  and  found  themselves  forsaken,  but 
of  more  who  won  notable  renown  and  respect.  Perhaps 
the  greatest  merit  of  this  book  is  the  instances  of  noble 
old  age  that  abound. 

Many  are  great  owing  to  the  reputation  of  their 
country  and  would  be  small  in  other  lands.  To  the  very 
poor  old  age  can  never  be  very  attractive.  Think  on  your 
good  deeds.  When  Marcus  died,  Cato  long  knew  no 
other  man  to  improve  by.  The  four  evils  charged  to  old 
age  are:  (i)  it  disables  from  business,  (2)  it  makes  the 
body  infirm,  (3)  it  robs  of  pleasure,  (4)  it  is  near  death. 
He  takes  these  up  in  detail.  The  downfall  of  great  states 
is  "generally  owing  to  the  giddy  administration  of  in- 
experienced young  men" ;  and,  on  the  contrary,  tottering 
states  have  been  saved  by  the  old.  The  young  are  all 
ignorant  orators.  Memory  fails  in  age  only  if  not  exer- 
cised, and  this  is  true  of  all  abilities.  Sophocles  wrote 
his  CEdipus  to  defy  those  who  called  him  a  dotard. 
Democritus,  Plato,  Socrates,  Zeno,  and  Cleanthes  are 
cited.  Many  old  men  cannot  submit  to  idleness  but  grow 
old  learning  something  new  every  day,  like  Solon.  Al- 
though the  voice  may  be  low,  it  may  have  more  com- 
mand. We  should  no  more  repine  when  middle  life 
leaves  us  than  we  do  when  childhood  departs.  The  adult 
does  not  mourn  that  he  is  no  longer  a  boy.  All  must 
prepare  themselves  against  old  age  and  mitigate  its 
natural  infirmities. 

The  stage  delights  in  weak,  dissolute  old  fellows 
worthy  of  contempt  and  ridicule.  Age  must  support  its 
proper  rights  and  dignities  and  not  give  them  weakly 
away.  We  must  recall  at  night  all  we  have  said  or  done 
during  the  day.  As  to  the  third,  old  age  being  incapable 

68 


THE  HISTORY  OF  OLD  AGE 

of  pleasure,  the  great  curse  is  indulgence  of  passion,  for 
which  men  have  betrayed  their  country.  Governments 
have  been  ruined  by  treachery,  for  lust  may  prompt  to 
any  villainy.  Reason  is  the  best  gift  of  heaven,  but  the 
highest  rapture  of  feeling  makes  reflection  impossible. 
Cato  then  describes  with  much  detail  the  charm  of  coun- 
try life — Cincinnatus,  etc.  We  might  well  wish  our 
enemies  were  guided  by  pleasure  only  for  then  we  could 
master  them  more  easily.  The  old  man  is  dead  to  certain 
enjoyments.  He  does  not  so  much  prize  the  convivium 
for  food  as  for  talk.  We  must  not  choose  only  compan- 
ions of  our  own  age  for  there  will  be  few  of  these  left. 
A  talk  should  turn  to  the  subjects  proposed  by  the  master 
of  the  feast,  the  cups  be  cooling.  He  says  "I  thank  the 
gods  I  am  got  rid  of  that  tyranny"  (venery).  He  does 
not  want  or  even  wish  it  in  any  form. 

Far  above  the  delights  of  literature  or  philosophy  are 
the  charms  of  country  life,  and  he  describes  at  length  the 
various  methods  of  vine  culture,  fertilization,  improving 
barren  soil,  irrigation,  orchards,  cattle,  bees,  gardens, 
flowers,  tree  planting,  etc.  The  farmer  can  say,  like  the 
ancient  Semites  when  offered  gold,  that  they  wanted 
none  for  it  was  more  glorious  to  command  those  who 
valued  it  than  to  possess  it.  Then  follow  many  instances 
of  old  people  who  have  retired  to  the  country  and  perhaps 
even  have  been  called  from  their  farms  to  great  tasks  of 
state.  He  advises  reading  Xenophon.  An  old  age  thus 
spent  is  the  happiest  period  if  attended  with  honor  and 
respect.  Old  men  are  miserable  if  they  demand  the  de- 
fense of  oratory.  In  the  college  of  augurs  old  men  have 
great  dignity.  Some  wines  sour  with  age  but  others 
grow  better  and  richer.  A  gravity  with  some  severity  is 
allowed,  but  never  ill  nature.  Covetousness  is  most 
absurd  because  what  is  left  of  life  needs  little. 

The  young  should  be  trained  to  envisage  death.  Youth 
in  its  greatest  vigor  is  subjected  to  more  diseases  than 

69 


SENESCENCE 

old  age.  If  men  too  young  governed  the  state,  all  gov- 
ernment would  fall.  The  old  have  already  attained  what 
the  young  only  hope  for,  namely,  long  years.  No  actor 
can  play  more  than  one  role  at  once.  It  takes  more  water 
to  put  out  a  hot  fire  than  a  spent  one.  The  young  are 
more  prone  to  die  by  violence,  the  old  by  over-ripeness. 
The  old  can  oppose  tyrants  because  these  can  only  kill ; 
and  their  life,  being  shorter,  is  worth  far  less.  The 
young  and  old  should  meditate  on  death  till  it  becomes 
familiar  and  this  only  makes  the  mind  free  and  easy. 
Many  a  soldier  has  rushed  into  the  melee,  with  no  result, 
when  he  knew  he  would  be  cut  to  pieces,  and  Marcus 
Atilius  Regulus  went  back  to  his  enemies  for  certain 
torture  and  death  because  he  had  promised.  There  is  a 
certain  satiety  of  each  stage  of  life,  and  always  one  is 
fading  as  another  warms  up. 

Perhaps,  Cato  concludes,  our  minds  are  an  efflux  of 
some  universal  mind,  and  there  may  be  an  argument  for 
preexistence.  We  have  not  only  interest  in,  but  a  kind  of 
right  to,  posterity.  The  wisest  accept  death  most  easily, 
although  it  is  by  no  means  clear  whether  we  are  dis- 
solved or  there  is  a  personal  continuation. 

Roman  authors  quote  "many  cases  of  great  longev- 
ity," and  Onomocritus,  an  Athenian,  tells  us  that  certain 
men  of  Greece,  and  even  entire  families,  enjoyed  per- 
petual youth  for  centuries.  Old  Papalius  was  believed 
to  have  lived  500  years  and  a  Portugee,  Faria,  300.  Pliny 
tells  us  of  a  king  who  died  in  his  eighty-second  year. 
Strabo  says  that  in  the  Punjab  people  lived  over  200 
years.  Epaminondas  had  seen  three  centuries  pass. 
Pliny  tells  us  that  when,  in  the  reign  of  Vespasian,  sta- 
tistics of  all  centenarians  between  the  Apennines  and  the 
Po  were  collected,  there  were  more  than  a  hundred  and 
seventy  of  them  out  of  a  population  of  three  million,  six 
of  whom  lived  over  150  years.  According  to  Lucian, 
Tiresias  lived  600  years  on  account  of  the  purity  of  his 

70 


THE  HISTORY  OF  OLD  AGE 

life,  and  the  inhabitants  of  Mount  Ethos  had  the  faculty 
of  living  a  century  and  a  half.  He  tells  us  of  an  Indian 
race,  the  Seres  who,  because  of  temperate  life  and  very 
scanty  food,  lived  300  years,  while  Pliny  tells  of  an 
Illyri'an  who  lived  500  and  the  king  of  Cyprus  who  out- 
lived 1 60  years.  Litorius  of  Aetolia  was  happiest  among 
mortals  for  he  had  attained  200  years.  Apolonius,  the 
grammarian,  outdoes  all  others  and  tells  of  people  who 
lived  thousands  of  years. 

Of  the  condition  and  status  of  old  people  all  through 
the  Christian  centuries  down  to  the  age  of  authentic 
statistics  we  know  very  little. 

Roger  Bacon  tells  us  of  a  remarkable  man  who  ap- 
peared in  Europe  in  1245  and  in  whom  everyone  was 
interested.  He  claimed  that  he  had  attended  the  Council 
of  Paris  in  A.D.  362  and  also  the  baptism  of  Clovis. 
Bacon's  skepticism  reduced  the  claim  of  this  unknown 
man  to  300  years.  In  1613  was  published  at  Turin  the 
life  of  a  man  who  is  said  to  have  lived  nearly  400  years, 
enjoying  full  use  of  all  his  faculties;  and  in  the  seven- 
teenth century  a  Scotchman,  MacCrane,  lived  200  years 
and  talked  of  the  Wars  of  the  Roses.  So  the  lives 
of  the  saints  are  rich  in  old  people — St.  Simeon  is 
said  to  have  lived  107  years;  St.  Narcissus,  165;  St. 
Anthony,  105;  the  hermit,  Paul,  113;  while  the  monks 
of  Mount  Ethos  often  reached  the  age  of  150, 
as  did  the  first  bishop  of  Ethiopia.  Although  there 
are,  of  course,  no  vital  statistics,  there  are  many 
reasons  to  believe  that  the  average  length  of  human 
life  was  shorter  and  that  old  people  in  general,  although, 
of  course,  not  without  remarkable  exceptions,  enjoyed 
little  respect.  Descriptions  of  them  sometimes  appear 
in  miracle  plays,  more  commonly  in  the  form  of  carica- 
tures, as  is  often  the  case  on  the  modern  stage,  where 
the  personification  of  old  people  is  often  a  specialty. 
There  are  dotards  and  fatuities  galore  and  the  more 

71 


SENESCENCE 

dignified  figures  like  King  Lear  or  even  Shylock  are 
represented  as  morally  perverse  or  mentally  unsound. 

Here  should  be  mentioned  the  remarkable  theory  of 
witchcraft  elaborated  by  Karl  Pearson.82  W.  Note- 
stein  8S  tells  us  that  by  accounting  as  carefully  as  the 
insufficient  evidence  permits  it  would  seem  that  "about 
six  times  as  many  women  were  indicted  as  men,"  and 
also  that  there  were  "twice  as  many  married  women  as 
spinsters,"  which  is  less  in  accord  with  tradition.  From 
his  account,  as  well  as  from  the  old  chapter  of  C. 
Mackay  on  the  "Witch  Mania"  (in  his  Popular  Delu- 
sions) and  also  from  an  interesting  study  by  G.  L. 
Kittredge,84  it  would  seem  that  the  first  accusations  of 
witchcraft  were  made  against  old,  middle-aged,  and 
young  women  almost  indiscriminately,  while  in  a  later 
stage  of  the  delusion  attention  focused  on  old  women, 
influenced  by  folklore,  which  tends  to  make  them  hags. 

Pearson's  theory,  developed  with  great  ingenuity,  is 
that  witchcraft  is  a  revival  of  a  very  old  and  widespread 
matriarchate  wherein  woman  not  only  ruled  but  society 
was  everywhere  permeated  by  her  genius,  and  paternity 
was  unknown.  The  key  to  this  older  civilization  was 
the  development  of  woman's  intuitive  faculty  under  the 
stress  of  child-bearing  and  -rearing.  The  mother-age 
in  its  diverse  forms  has  been  a  stage  of  social  growth 
for  probably  all  branches  of  the  human  race.  With  its 
mother-right  customs  it  made  a  social  organization  in 
which  there  was  more  unity  of  interest,  fellowship, 
partnership  in  property  and  sex  than  we  find  in  the 
larger  social  units  of  to-day.  Hence  feminists  may  well 
look  back  to  this  as  a  golden  age,  despite  the  fact  that 
it  was  in  many  respects  cruel  and  licentious.  It  shows 
that  those  who  talk  of  absolute  good  and  bad  and  an 

""Woman  as  Witch"  in  his  Chances  of  Death,  1897,  vol.  2,  pp.  1-50. 
m  History  of  Witchcraft  in  England,  i557-i?i8,  p.  114. 
"  Notes  on  Witchcraft,  Amer.  Antiquarian  Society. 

72 


THE  HISTORY  OF  OLD  AGE 

unchanging  moral  code  may  help  to  police  but  can  never 
reform  society. 

Pearson  proceeds  to  argue  that  certain  forms  of 
medieval  witchcraft  are  fossils  of  the  old  mother-age 
and  more  or  less  perverted  rites  and  customs  of  a  pre- 
historic civilization,  and  even  holds  that  the  confessions 
wrung  from  poor  old  women  by  torture  have  a  real 
scientific  value  for  the  historian  of  a  far  earlier  stage 
of  life.  Primitive  woman,  thus,  once  had  a  status  far 
higher  and  very  different  from  anything  she  has  since 
enjoyed.  Man  as  husband  and  father  had  no  place  but 
came  later.  Aging  women  in  the  matriarchate  were 
depositaries  of  tribal  lore  and  family  custom,  and  the 
"wise  one,"  "sibyl,"  or  "witch"  passed  all  this  along, 
as  she  did  her  herb-lore.  She  domesticated  the  small 
animals — goat,  goose,  cat,  hen;  devised  the  distaff, 
spindle,  pitchfork,  broom  (but  not  the  spear,  axe,  or 
hammer) ;  and  presided  over  rites  in  which  there  were 
symbols  of  agricultural  and  animal  fertility  and 
abundant  traces  of  licentiousness  and  impurity  in  the 
sacred  dances  and  ceremonies.  "Witch"  means  "wise- 
acre," "one  who  knows,"  and  some  were  good  and  some 
bad  dames  or  beldames.  The  former  brought  good 
luck;  the  latter,  famine,  plague,  etc.  All  witches  have 
weather  wisdom,  and  a  descendant  of  the  Vola  or  Sibyl 
is,  in  the  Edda,  seated  in  the  midst  of  the  assembly  of 
the  gods  and  could  produce  thunder,  hail,  and  rain. 
Tacitus  tells  us  of  men  who  took  the  part  of  priestesses, 
probably  in  female  attire.  Kirmes  is  a  festival  lasting 
several  days,  primarily  for  dedicating  a  church,  although 
it  has  many  features  of  the  celebration  of  a  goddess, 
who  in  Christian  demonology  was  first  converted  into 
the  devil's  mother  or  grandmother  and  invested  with 
most  of  the  functions  of  old  witches.  These,  in  the 
witches'  sabbath,  came  more  to  devolve  upon  her  son. 
In  Swabia  the  witch  stone  is  an  old  altar  and  the  cere- 

73 


SENESCENCE 

monies  about  it  suggest  marriage.  The  devil  is  a  pro- 
fessional sweetheart;  his  mother,  a  person  of  great 
importance,  was  supposed  once  to  have  built  a  palace 
on  the  Danube,  to  hunt  with  black  dogs,  and  to  be  related 
to  Frau  Holda.  She  watered  the  meadows  in  "Twelfth 
Night"  and  punished  idle  spinsters.  The  devil's  mother 
is  only  a  degraded  form  of  the  goddess  of  fertility  and 
domestic  activity  and  her  worship  was  once  associated 
not  only  with  licentiousness  but  with  human  sacrifice. 
It  was  these  women  who  were  primarily  in  league  with 
the  devil  and  once  a  year  must  dance  all  night.  The 
hag  is  the  woman  of  the  woods  who  knows  and  collects 
herbs,  especially  those  that  relieve  the  labors  of  child- 
birth. The  priestess  of  the  old  civilization  became  a 
medicine  woman  and  midwife,  the  goddess  of  fertility 
being  killed  in  the  autumn  that  she  may  be  rejuvenated 
in  the  spring.  Thus  the  witch  is  a  relic  of  the  priestess 
or  goddess  of  fertility,  and  the  hostility  they  sometimes 
exhibit  for  marriage  was  because  at  this  stage  it  was 
not  monogamic  but  group  marriage. 

Thus  Pearson  thinks  that  Walpurgis  customs  bring 
out  most  of  the  weak  and  strong  points  of  ancient 
woman's  civilization,  fossils  of  which  lurk  under  all  the 
folklore  of  witchcraft.  Here  we  find  the  rudiments  of 
medicine,  domestication  of  small  animals,  cultivation  of 
vegetables,  domestic  and  household  arts,  the  pitchfork 
—which  was  once  the  fire-rake — etc.  All  of  these  are 
woman's  inventions  and  were  necessary  for  the  higher 
discoveries.  Although  he  did  not  invent  them,  man 
later  made  woman  use  them.  The  primitive  savage 
knows  nothing  of  agriculture,  spinning,  and  herbs,  but 
his  wife  does.  It  is  not  he  but  she  who  made  these 
symbols  of  a  female  deity.  The  fertility,  resource,  and 
inventiveness  of  woman  arose  from  the  struggle  she 
had  to  make  for  the  preservation  of  herself  and  her 
child.  Man  was  quickened  by  warfare  of  tribe  against 

74 


THE  HISTORY  OF  OLD  AGE 

tribe,  but  that  came  later.  The' first  struggle  was  for 
food  and  shelter.  Thus  the  father-age  rests  on  a  degen- 
erate form  of  an  older  group  and  is  not  the  pure  out- 
come of  male  domination.  He  thus  believes  in  a  direct 
line  of  descent  from  the  old  salacious  worship  of  the 
mother-goddess  and  the  extravagances  of  witchcraft, 
and  he  finds  survivals  of  this  even  in  the  licensed  vice 
of  to-day.  Thus  this  early  civilization  of  woman  handed 
down  a  mass  of  useful  customs  and  knowledge,  so  that 
she  was  the  bearer  of  a  civilization  that  man  has  not  yet 
entirely  attained.  If  many  things  in  her  life  are  vestiges 
of  the  mother  age,  many  in  his  represent  a  still  lower 
stratum  and  the  drudgery  of  the  peasant  woman  in  many 
parts  of  Europe  represents  the  extreme  of  the  reaction 
brought  about  by  male  dominance. 

Otis  T.  Mason  and  A.  F.  Chamberlain  have  stressed 
the  significance  of  woman's  work  in  the  early  stages 
of  the  development  of  the  human  race,  and  if  it  be  true 
that  in  witchcraft  we  have  a  recrudescence  of  the  reac- 
tions of  man  to  this  preeminence  of  the  other  sex,  in 
which  woman  in  her  least  attractive  form — all  shriveled, 
toothless,  and  as  a  vicious  trouble-maker — is  caricatured 
in  the  long  war  of  sex  against  sex,  we  certainly  have 
here  considerable  confirmation  of  some  of  the  views  now 
represented  by  John  M.  Tyler  35  that  prehistoric  woman 
led  mankind  in  the  early  stages  of  its  upward  march 
toward  civilization.  In  the  eternal  struggle  of  old 
people  to  maintain  their  power  against  the  oncoming 
generations  which  would  submerge  or  sweep  them  away, 
witchcraft  on  this  view  represents  the  very  latest  stage 
of  a  long  and  losing  struggle  of  old  women  for  place 
and  influence  who  in  the  last  resort  did  not  scruple, 
handicapped  though  they  were  by  ugliness,  neglect,  and 
contempt,  to  cling  to  the  least  and  last  remnants  of  their 
ancient  prerogatives. 

K  The  New  Stone  Age  in  Northern  Europe.    New  York,  Scribner,  1921. 

75 


SENESCENCE 

The  attitude  of  children  toward  old  people  is  inter- 
esting and  significant,  but  it  is  very  difficult  to  dis- 
tinguish between  their  own  indigenous  and  intrinsic 
feelings  and  the  conventionalities  of  respect  and  even 
the  outer  forms  of  convention  that  society  has  imposed 
upon  them.  Many  children  live  with  their  grandparents 
and  the  attitude  of  the  latter  toward  the  former  makes, 
of  course,  a  great  difference.  Both,  especially  grand- 
mothers, are  prone  to  be  over-indulgent  and  often  allow 
children  greater  liberties  than  the  mother  would — under 
the  influence,  doubtless,  of  the  very  strong  instinct  to 
win  their  good-will.  But  it  is  very  doubtful  if  the  aver- 
age child  loves  the  grandmother  as  much  as  it  is  loved 
by  her. 

Colin  Scott 38  obtained  226  reminiscent  answers  from 
adults  on  the  question  of  how  as  children  they  felt 
toward  old  people  and  found  little  difference  in  the  sexes 
in  this  respect.  No  less  than  eighty  per  cent  expressed 
negative  or  pessimistic  views ;  that  is,  they  disliked  old 
people  because  they  could  not  run  and  play;  because 
they  were  sometimes  cross,  solemn,  stupid,  conceited; 
perhaps  were  thought  to  envy  the  young  or  interfere 
with  childish  pleasures,  etc. ;  while  not  a  few  expressed 
points  of  aversion  to  wrinkles,  unsteady  gait,  untidiness 
in  dress  and  habits  (particularly  of  eating),  slowness, 
uncertain  voice,  loss  of  teeth,  bad  pronunciation,  etc. 
Only  twenty  per  cent  took  a  favorable  view  of  old 
people,  regarding  them  as  wise,  not  only  about  the  wea- 
ther but  about  other  things;  as  free  to  do  what  they 
wished;  having  great  power  as  storytellers;  constantly 
doing  little  acts  of  kindness  and  sometimes  interceding 
with  parents  in  their  behalf.  For  the  majority  of  young 
children  the  pleasures  of  life  seem  to  be  essentially  over 
at  forty  and  they  look  upon  people  of  that  age  as  already 

""Old  Age  and  Death."    Amer.  Jour.  Psychol,  Oct.,  1896,  vol.  8,  pp. 
67-122. 

76 


THE  HISTORY  OF  OLD  AGE 

moribund.  Very  often  children  are  overcome  by  a  sud- 
den sense  of  pathos  that  old  people  are  facing  death, 
the  process  of  which  with  lowered  vitality  seems  to 
them  to  have  already  begun.  To  some,  the  very  aged, 
even  conventionally  loved,  are  inwardly  repulsive  be- 
cause their  weakness  and  appearance  already  begin  to 
seem  a  little  corpse-like ;  while  a  few,  on  the  other  hand, 
are  animated  by  the  motive  to  make  old  people  happy 
because  their  life  seems  to  them  so  short  or  because 
little  things  please  them  so  much.  It  would  almost 
seem  from  such  data  as  though  the  modern  child  was 
not  sufficiently  accustomed  to  grandparents  to  have  fully 
adjusted  to  them;  and,  as  everyone  knows,  there  is  a 
very  strong  and  instinctive  tendency  in  children  to  jeer 
at  and  perhaps  attempt  ludicrous  imitations  of  old  age. 
At  any  rate,  we  have  here  two  tendencies  evidently  in 
greater  or  less  conflict  with  each  other. 

Mantegazza 37  collected  very  many  views  from  litera- 
ture concerning  old  age  and  death  and  grouped  them  in 
two  classes,  favorable  and  unfavorable.  The  majority 
of  his  quotations  stigmatize  it  as  repulsive,  crumpled 
in  skin  and  form,  perhaps  tearful,  squinting,  with 
mottled  skin,  loose,  distorted  teeth,  emaciation  some- 
times suggesting  a  skeleton,  hardness  of  hearing,  croak- 
ing voice,  knotted  veins,  hemorrhoids,  tending  to  drift 
into  an  apologetic  attitude  for  living  like  a  beggar  ask- 
ing alms  or  craving  pity,  with  no  strong  desires,  etc., 
so  that  even  those  who  love  old  people  in  the  bottom 
of  their  hearts  often  do  not  want  them  around.  These 
quotations  stress  the  garrulousness,  untidiness  in  table 
manners,  carelessness  in  dress  or  toilet,  moodiness, 
exacting  nature,  and  disparagement  of  present  times 
in  always  lauding  the  past.  "Old  age  is  pitiable  be- 
cause although  life  is  not  attractive,  death  is  dreaded." 
People  sometimes  "seem  to  themselves  and  to  others 

*"  Die  Hygiene  des  Lebensalters. 

77 


SENESCENCE 

to  live  on  because  the  gods  do  not  love  them."  Life  is 
often  described  as  a  "long  sorrow,  the  last  scene  of 
which  is  always  death."  "There  are  only  three  events 
— to  be  born,  live,  and  die.  A  man  does  not  feel  it  when 
he  is  born  but  through  life  he  suffers  and  death  is  pain- 
ful, and  then  he  is  forgotten."  "Every  tick  of  the  clock 
brings  us  nearer  to  death."  "We  part  from  life  as  from 
the  house  of  a  host  and  not  from  our  own  home."  "One 
after  another  our  organs  refuse  their  service  and  col- 
lapse." "All  that  lives  must  die,  and  all  that  grows  must 
grow  old."  "Death  begins  in  the  cradle."  "The  harbor 
of  all  things  good  or  bad  is  death."  "The  elements  are 
in  constant  conflict  with  man,  slowly  demolishing  every- 
thing he  does  and  in  the  end  annihilating  him." 

On  the  other  hand,  some,  like  the  Stoics,  have  not 
only  affected  to  accept  death  with  perfect  equanimity 
but  call  it  the  highest  good  that  God  has  given  men. 
The  Epicurean  said  death  was  no  evil  because  as  long 
as  we  live  it  is  not  present  and  when  it  is  present  we 
.are  not  there.  Pliny  said  the  gods  have  given  us  noth- 
ing more  to  be  desired  than  brevity  of  life.  Others  say 
that  the  old  may  have  weak  bodies  but  normally  have 
good  will  and  this  compensates.  Others  stress  the  dignity 
of  age  or  its  steadfastness,  its  fondness  for  children 
and  the  young.  Sometimes  the  old  become  epicures  in 
eating  and  connoisseurs  in  drinking.  Some  commend 
as  a  laudable  ambition  the  desire  of  the  old  to  live  as 
long,  as  well,  and  as  fully  as  possible.  Others  think  the 
love  of  beauty,  especially  in  nature,  is  greater;  still 
others  find  a  new  love  of  order,  better  knowledge  of 
self,  both  physical  and  mental.  He  suggests  that  old 
age  should  be  almost  a  profession,  as  we  have  to  fit  to 
new  conditions.  It  is  possible  then  to  take  larger  views, 
and  he  says  that  of  the  three  attitudes  toward  death, 
( I )  not  to  think  of  it  at  all,  the  recourse  of  the  common 
and  the  weak,  (2)  belief  in  immortality,  a  very  pleasing 

78 


THE  HISTORY  OF  OLD  AGE 

and  comforting  delusion,  and  (3)  to  face  and  get 
familiar  with  it,  the  last  is  by  far  the  highest  and  hard- 
est. Thus  the  old  must  realize  that  they  are  as  brittle 
and  fragile  as  glass,  cannot  do  what  they  once  could, 
become  ill  from  slighter  causes  and  recover  more  slowly, 
must  especially  guard  against  colds,  fatigue,  change  of 
habit,  and  must  be  always  on  their  guard  not  to  accept 
others'  precepts  about  keeping  themselves  in  the  top  of 
their  condition  but  work  out  those  best  for  themselves. 

In  all  ages  since  civilization  began  we  have  frequent 
outcrops  of  the  tendency  to  divide  human  life  into 
stages,  many  or  few,  more  or  less  sharply  marked  off 
one  from  the  other.  L.  Low  has  given  us  a  comprehen- 
sive survey  of  this  subject.  There  has  never  been,  how- 
ever, any  general  agreement  as  to  these  age  demarca- 
tions save  two,  namely,  the  beginning  and  the  end  of 
sex  life,  which  divides  life  into  three  stages.  Child  life, 
as  we  all  know,  has  lately  been  divided  into  various 
epochs — the  nursling;  the  pre-school  age;  the  quadren- 
nium  from  eight  to  twelve ;  puberty ;  the  age  of  attaining 
majority;  nubility;  the  acme  of  physical  ability  (for 
example,  for  athletes  circa  thirty)  ;  the  beginning  of  the 
decline  of  life,  most  often  placed  between  forty  and 
fifty,  a  stage  that  has  many  marked  features  of  its  own ; 
the  development  of  the  senium,  marked  by  impotence, 
with  occasional  subdivisions  of  this  stage,  as,  for 
example  in  Shakespeare : 

The  sixth  age  shifts 
Into  the  lean  and  slipper'd  pantaloon, 
With  spectacles  on  nose  and  pouch  on  side, 
His  youthful  hose,  well  sav'd,  a  world  too  wide 
For  his  shrunk  shank;  and  his  big  manly  voice, 
Turning  again  toward  childish  treble,  pipes 
And  whistles  in  his  sound.    Last  scene  of  all, 
That  ends  this  strange  eventful  history, 
Is  second  childishness  and  mere  oblivion, 
Sans  teeth,  sans  eyes,  sans  taste,  sans  everything. 

79 


SENESCENCE 

Our  educational  curricula  are  still  far  more  logical 
in  the  sequence  of  their  subject  matter  and  their  method 
than  they  are  genetic  whereas  they  should  be  essentially 
the  latter,  as  will  be  the  case  when  the  paidocentric  view- 
point has  become  paramount,  as  it  should,  over  the 
scholiocentric.  We  have  made  much  progress  since 
Herbart  in  determining  true  culture  stages,  and  while 
there  are  very  many  exceptions  to  the  law  that  in  gen- 
eral the  individual  recapitulates  the  stages  of  the  race, 
this  great  principle  has  far  wider  scope  than  we  have 
yet  recognized.  Again,  we  have  made  great  progress 
along  another  line,  namely,  in  distinguishing  physio- 
logical and  especially  psychological  from  chronological 
age,  but  here  we  have  little  consensus  of  either  method 
or  result  beyond  the  early  teens.  Yet  no  observer  of  life 
can  fail  to  doubt  that  there  is  the  same  and  perhaps 
even,  on  the  whole,  greater  average  diversity  among 
individuals  in  mental  age  as  they  advance  along  the  scale 
of  years.  Some  minds  are  young  and  growing  at 
seventy  while  others  seem  to  cross  some  invisible  dead- 
line at  forty.  But  of  all  this  we  have  no  settled  criteria 
and  the  age  of  customary  or  enforced  retirement  is 
arbitrary,  though  very  diversely  fixed  by  various  indus- 
trial concerns,  pension  systems,  etc.,  without  regard  to 
mental  age  or  youth.  In  fact,  the  world  has  so  far 
attempted  almost  nothing  that  could  be  called  a  curric- 
ulum for  the  later  years  of  life — physical,  intellectual, 
moral,  social,  or  even  hygienic  or  religious,  after  the 
very  variable  period  when  the  prime  of  life  is  reached 
and  passed.  Happily,  however,  we  do  have  both  vestiges 
and  modern  recrudescences  of  such  a  view  in  the  field 
of  religion,  as  may  be  briefly  illustrated  in  the  following 
paragraphs. 

Many  have  held  with  DuBuy,88  that  different  religions 

"  "Four  Types  of  Protestants :  A  Comparative  Study  in  the  Psychology 
of  Religion,"  Jour,  of  Relig.  Psychol,  Nov.,  1908,  vol.  3,  pp.  165-209. 

80 


THE  HISTORY  OF  OLD  AGE 

best  fitted  different  ages.  He  believes  that  Confucian- 
ism, with  its  stress  on  respect  for  parents  and  ancestors 
and  on  the  cultivation  of  practical  virtues,  best  fits  the 
nature  and  needs  of  young  children;  that  Moham- 
medanism, with  its  passionate  monotheism,  has  a  certain 
affinity  for  the  next  stage  of  life;  Christianity  is  best 
from  adolescence  on  to  the  age  when  the  marriage 
relation  is  at  its  apex ;  Buddhism  comes  next ;  and  Brah- 
manism  is  for  old  age. 

Max  Miiller 39  says  that  in  very  ancient  India  it 
was  recognized  "that  the  religion  of  a  man  cannot  and 
ought  not  to  be  the  same  as  that  of  a  child,  and  that  the 
religious  ideas  of  an  old  man  must  differ  from  those 
of  an  active  man  in  the  world.  It  is  useless  to  attempt 
to  deny  such  facts,"  and  we  are  reminded  that  we  all 
have  to  struggle  and  have  to  pass  through  many  stages 
of  clearing  up  childish  conceptions  in  this  field.  Most 
cultivated  men  come  out  of  these  struggles  with  certain 
rather  firm  convictions,  but  these  later  may  be  found 
to  need  revision. 

But  when  the  evening  of  life  draws  near  and  softens  the  light 
and  shade  of  conflicting  opinion,  when  to  agree  with  the  spirit 
of  truth  within  becomes  far  dearer  than  to  agree  with  a  majority 
of  the  world  without,  the  old  questions  appeal  once  more  like 
long  forgotten  friends.  The  old  man  learns  to  bear  with  those  from 
whom  formerly  he  differed,  and  while  he  is  willing  to  part  with 
all  that  is  non-essential — and  most  religious  differences  seem  to 
arise  from  non-essentials — he  clings  all  the  more  firmly  to  the 
few  strong  and  solid  planks  that  are  left  to  carry  him  into  the 
harbor  no  longer  very  distant  from  his  sight.  It  is  hardly  credit- 
able how  all  other  religions  have  overlooked  these  simple  facts, 
how  they  have  tried  to  force  on  the  old  and  wise  the  food  that 
was  meant  for  babes,  and  how  they  have  thereby  alienated  and 
lost  their  best  and  strongest  friends.  It  is  therefore  a  lesson  all 
the  more  worth  learning  from  history  that  one  religion  at  least, 
and  one  of  the  most  ancient  and  powerful  and  most  widely  spread 

**  The  Vedanta  Philosophy,  London,  1914,  p.  16  et  seq, 

81 


SENESCENCE 

religions,  has  recognized  this  fact  without  the  slightest  hesita- 
tion. 

According  to  the  ancient  canons  of  the  Brahmanic 
faith,  each  man  must  pass  through  several  stages.  The 
youth  is  sent  to  the  house  of  a  teacher  or  Guru,  whom 
he  must  obey  and  serve  implicitly  in  every  way  and  who 
teaches  what  is  necessary  for  life,  especially  the  Veda 
and  his  religious  duties.  He  is  a  mere  passive  recipient, 
learner,  and  believer.  At  the  next  stage  the  man  is 
married  and  must  perform  all  the  duties  prescribed  for 
the  householder.  But  during  both  these  periods  no 
doubt  is  ever  heard  as  to  the  truth  of  religion  or  the 
authority  of  laws  and  rites.  But  when  the  hair  turns 
white  and  there  are  grandchildren,  "a  new  life  opens 
during  which  the  father  of  the  family  may  leave  his 
home  and  village  and  retire  into  the  forest  with  or  with- 
out his  wife.  During  that  period  he  is  absolved  from 
the  necessity  of  performing  any  sacrifices,  although  he 
may  or  must  undergo  certain  self-denials  or  penances, 
some  of  them  extremely  painful.  He  is  then  allowed  to 
meditate  with  proper  freedom  on  the  great  problems  of 
life  and  death,  and  for  that  purpose  is  expected  to  study 
the  Upanishads,"  to  learn  the  doctrines  in  which  all 
sacrificial  duties  are  rejected,  and  the  very  gods  to  whom 
the  ancient  prayers  of  the  Veda  were  addressed  are 
put  aside  to  make  room  for  the  one  supreme  impersonal 
being  called  Brahm.  These  mahatmas,  like  some 
medieval  hermit-saints  commemorated  in  the  volumi- 
nous hagiology  of  the  Bollandist  Fathers,  were  reputed 
to  have  often  attained  very  great  age  and  wisdom  and 
to  be  sought  out  in  their  retreats  to  solve  great  problems 
by  men  still  in  active  life.  The  bodies  of  a  few  of  them 
were  fabled  to  have  undergone  a  subtle  process  of  tran- 
substantiation  and  thus  to  have  achieved  a  true  mundane 
immortality. 

Thus  the  religion  of  childhood  and  manhood  for  the 
82 


THE  HISTORY  OF  OLD  AGE 

venerable  sage  is  transmuted  into  philosophy  or  medita- 
tion on  the  most  general  problems  and  the  very  nature 
of  not  only  life  but  being  itself,  that  Plato  described  as 
the  cult  of  death.  The  old  man,  thus,  in  the  classic  days 
of  ancient  India  directed  his  thoughts  toward  absorp- 
tion. His  religion  was  pantheism,  and  the  theme  of  his 
contemplation  was  the  source  of  all  things  and  their 
return  to  this  source  as  their  goal.  Perhaps  we  might 
now  say  that  according  to  this  view,  if  evolution  is  the 
inspiration  of  the  intellect  in  its  youth  and  its  prime, 
involution  was  its  muse  in  the  stages  of  decline  as  it 
awaited  resumption  into  the  One-and-All.  Modern 
pragmatists,  like  the  best  of  the  ancient  Sophists,  hold 
that  the  truth  that  best  fits  and  expresses  Me  is  and  must 
be  held  with  the  completest  conviction,  and  the  genetic 
idea  is  that  different  philosophies  and  different  faiths 
fit  and  express  not  only  different  temperaments  but 
different  stages  of  life,  and  that,  therefore,  creeds  can 
never  be  fixed  and  stationary  but  must  be  constantly 
transformed.  There  is  no  absolute  or  final  form  of 
truth  for  all  save  in  the  dominion  of  pure  mathematical 
and  physical  science,  and  it  is  one  of  the  most  tragic 
aspects  of  our  modern  culture  that  we  so  often  find 
mature  and  even  aging  men  and  women  arrested  in 
infantile  or  juvenile  stages  of  their  development  in  re- 
gard to  the  larger  problems  of  life,  for  where  and  just 
in  proportion  as  the  latter  is  intense  there  is  incessant 
change.  Christianity  is  the  best  of  all  religions  through 
the  entire  stage  of  the  vita  sexualis  from  its  inception 
to  its  decline.  Its  essence  is  the  sublimation  of  love. 
It  is  the  religion  of  personalization  culminating  in  the 
faith  in  another  individual  life.  It  is  not  the  religion 
for  old  men,  and  the  revival  of  its  attitudes,  which  we 
often  see  in  them,  is  a  phenomenon  of  arrest  or  reversion 
and  not  one  of  the  advance  that  senescence  should  mark 

83 


SENESCENCE 

if  the  last  stage  of  life  is  to  have  its  complete  unfold- 
ment. 

Some  writers  believe  that  age  differences  constitute 
one  of  the  important  bases,  if  not  the  chief  one,  in  the 
primitive  segmentation  of  society  into  layers.  It  is  a 
common  observation  that  the  young  tend  to  be  progres- 
sive and  radical,  and  the  old,  conservative,  intent  that 
no  good  thing  of  the  past  be  lost.  Indeed,  this  is  often 
called  the  most  natural  and  wholesome  basis  of  division 
into  parties,  religious  as  well  as  political.  In  a  sense 
there  is  eternal  war  between  the  old  and  young,  as  illus- 
trated, for  example,  by  Turgenev's  Fathers  and  Sons. 
The  young  are  always  inclined  to  brush  aside  their  elders 
and  are  psychologically  incapable  of  taking  their  point 
of  view.  So  in  many  a  mixed  assemblage  we  have  a 
clash  of  temperaments  that  divides  fathers  and  sons, 
mothers  and  daughters.40  In  some  Australian  tribes 
there  is  an  absolute  dominance  of  the  elders,  and  among 
some  American  Indians  of  the  plain  there  is  incessant 
antagonism  between  the  young  braves  eager  to  dis- 
tinguish themselves  in  raids  against  hostile  tribes  and 
the  older  chiefs  seeking  to  prevent  a  hazardous  war. 
F.  Schurtz 41  thinks  this  antagonism  between  the  older 
and  younger  generation,  which  separates  parents  from 
children,  forms  the  germ  of  classifications  of  age  and 
is  the  oldest  type  of  associated  groups.  Lowie,  however, 
does  not  think  that  the  kind  of  age  groupings  found  in 
such  cultures  have  a  purer  natural  basis  but  rather  that 
they  represent  a  blending  of  psychological  and  conven- 
tional factors.  It  is  very  hard  to  transcend  the  intuitions 
of  one's  years.  Where  these  segmentations  occur  they 
may  or  may  not  be  fully  organized,  but  they  generally 
go  back  to  a  more  primitive  social  division  into  boys, 
bachelors,  and  married  men,  very  common  among 

"  R.  H.  Lowie,  Primitive  Society,  1920. 
41  Altcrsklasscti  und  Mdnnerbiinde,  1902. 

84 


THE  HISTORY  OF  OLD  AGE 

savages.  More  elaborated  age  distinctions  probably 
arose  a  little  later. 

R.  S.  Bourne42  also  realizes  that  there  is  always  a 
half -conscious  war  going  on  between  the  old  and  the 
young  and  believes  this  is  a  wholesome  challenge  that 
both  should  recognize  to  justify  themselves.  Older  men 
should  not  be  led  captive  by  the  younger  and  should 
neither  over-emphasize  nor  waive  their  own  cherished 
convictions,  which  are  the  best  results  of  age  and  ex- 
perience. To-day  the  older  generation  is  more  inclined 
to  stress  duty  and  service  and  to  hark  back  to  Victorian 
ideals.  Perhaps  in  general  they  tend  a  little  to  over- 
individuation  but  they  should  choose  the  golden  mean 
between  insisting  upon  their  own  point  of  view  and  com- 
plete capitulation  to  youth. 

Indeed,  we  may  go  much  further  and  say  that  just 
as,  despite  the  love  of  man  and  woman,  there  has  always 
been  a  war  of  sex  against  sex,  so  despite  the  love  of 
parents  and  children,  there  is  also  eternal  war  between 
the  old  and  young.  The  small  boy  loves,  reveres,  and 
obeys  his  father  but  often  oscillates  to  the  opposite  state 
of  fear  and  even  hate  under  the  law  of  the  so-called 
ambivalence  of  feeling.  Each  age  tends  to  assert  itself 
and  to  resent  the  undue  influence  of  another  age.  Youth 
pushes  on  and  up  and  seeks  to  make  itself  effective  and 
to  escape  or  resist  control  by  elders.  This  is  very  fully 
brought  out  in  the  recent  literature  of  psychoanalysis. 
In  primitive  society  the  boy  soon  transfers  this  attitude 
toward  his  parents  to  the  chief  of  the  tribe,  and  then 
perhaps  to  a  supreme  being,  for  all  gods  are  made  in  the 
father  image.  Indeed,  we  are  now  told  that  the  primal, 
generic  sin  in  its  extreme  form  is  patricide,  and  one  of 
the  deepest  fears  is  directed  against  authority.  The 
pre-Abrahamic  sheik  was  his  own  priest  and  king  and 

"Atlantic  Monthly,  1915,  p.  385. 

85 


SENESCENCE 

that  of  his  tribe.  There  was  no  law  save  his  will.  En- 
larged, perfected,  and  projected  into  the  sky,  the 
patronymic  sire  became  a  deity.  Part  of  the  ancient 
reverence  for  fathers  accumulated  from  generation  to 
generation  was  thus  transcendentalized  into  deities  and 
part  of  it  developed  in  the  mundane  sphere  as  reverence 
for  rulers,  heroes,  the  great  dead,  or  perhaps  into  the 
worship  of  ancestors.  But  one  very  essential  part  of 
it  survives  in  adult  life  in  the  attitude  toward  authority, 
every  instrument  and  bearer  of  which  is  thus  generically 
a  father-surrogate.  Thus  older  people  feel  toward  their 
deities  much  as  younger  children  do  toward  earthly 
parents  and  the  greater  men  in  their  environment. 
There  is  always  a  measure  of  love  and  dread  merging 
into  each  other.  Ancient  tribes  that  Robertson  Smith 
and  Frazer  describe,  after  selecting  and  feeding  fat  their 
rulers  for  a  time,  ascribing  to  them  divine  prerogatives, 
giving  them  extraordinary  freedom  in  certain  respects 
while  restricting  them  by  severe  taboos  and  in  other  ways, 
finally  slew  them  ritually  as  sacrifices  offered  with 
piacular  rites.  All  this  illustrates  the  same  dual  trend 
of  affectivity  within  and  so  does  the  fate  of  every  deity 
who  is  slain,  perhaps  with  every  indignity  and  torture, 
and  afterwards  resurrected,  transfigured,  and  glorified. 

All  government  in  a  sense,  too,  springs  from  paternal- 
ism, and  so  does  all  human  power,  dignity,  and  preroga- 
tives, so  that  the  French  revolutionist  and  even  Nihilist, 
who  is  chronically  and  constitutionally  against  all  the 
powers  that  be  and  who  feels  that  every  command  or 
prohibition  is  a  challenge  to  defy  or  violate  it,  only  illus- 
trates the  extreme  of  revolt  now  sometimes  designated 
as  kurophobia." 

Of  course  rebellion  against  tyranny  is  commendable. 
Many  fathers  are  bad  and  this  cumulative  fact  has 

•See  Le  Bon:    The  World  in  Revolt,  1921. 
86 


THE  HISTORY  OF  OLD  AGE 

greatly  intensified  the  instinct  of  rebellion.  In  an  ex- 
treme form  this  may  be  expressed  in  negativism  or  anti- 
suggestibility,  but  sooner  or  later  there  is  a  revolt  of  all 
sons  against  all  sires.  This,  too,  acts  as  a  challenge  to 
originality  and  gives  its  elan  to  the  passion  for  boundless 
freedom,  which  may  even  degenerate  into  forms  of 
affectation  and  a  passion  for  over-individuality.  Thus 
next  to  hostile  nature  herself,  fathers  and  what  they 
symbolize  have  been  the  objects  of  man's  chief  opposi- 
tion in  the  world's  history.  The  very  words  "obey" 
and  "conform"  hardly  exist  in  the  vocabulary  of  some 
recusants.  The  devil,  too,  always  denies  and  defies 
and  all  through  the  history  of  religions  has  been  the 
typical  rebel.  The  kurophobe  is  the  evil  genius  of 
republics  and  democracies.  He  prates  of  rights  and 
has  little  or  nothing  to  say  of  duties  and  on  this  view 
he  is  the  product  of  all  the  bad  fathers  in  his  pedigree. 

In  many  patriarchal  and  tribal  societies  the  father  or 
chief  monopolized  the  women,  whom  the  sons  dared  not 
approach.  Hence  we  are  told  that  they  were  compelled 
to  seek  mates  outside,  whence  exogeny  arose.  Freudians 
hold  that  the  son's  rancor  against  the  father  is  rooted 
in  this  inhibition  of  the  mating  instinct.  This  doubt- 
less did  contribute  very  much  to  intensify  it  as  the  boy 
grew  to  man's  estate  but  it  is  going  too  far  to  say  that 
in  the  very  intricate  grammer  of  revolt,  no  less  complex 
than  Newman  long  ago  showed  the  grammar  of  assent 
to  be,  other  factors  did  not  come  in  and  that  there  no 
other  social  inhibitions  of  the  will-to-live  than  those  of 
the  will  to  propagate.  This  rivalry  and  antagonism, 
which  is  probably  more  deep  and  multiform  than  we 
have  yet  realized,  is  seen  at  every  age  from  early  child- 
hood— in  the  hostility  of  Freshman  and  Sophomore, 
those  under  and  over  age  for  citizenship  or  for 
war,  in  struggles  of  men  in  the  meridian  of  life  to 
depose  or  supplant  those  a  little  older,  in  the  countless 

87 


SENESCENCE 

devices  of  those  who  are  aging  to  maintain  their  power 
and  influence,  which  perhaps  never  in  history  had  such 
an  efficient  bulwark  as  when  they  became  secure  in  the 
right  of  testamentary  bequest  of  their  property  as  they 
wished — and  is  only  mitigated  in  the  case  of  the  very 
old  because  they  are  few  and  feeble  and  have  already  in 
many  ways  been  superseded  and  relegated  to  ineffi- 
ciency. 

Metchnikoff  in  his  essay  on  Old  Age  tells  us  that  at 
Vate  the  "old  men  have  at  least  this  consolation — that 
during  the  funeral  ceremonies  it  is  customary  to  attach 
to  their  arms  a  pig  which  may  be  eaten  during  the  feast 
given  in  honor  of  the  departure  of  the  soul  for  the  other 
world."  After  citing  other  similar  cases,  he  tells  us 
that  civilized  people  are  not  unlike  savages  for  although 
they  do  not  kill  superannuated  members  of  the  com- 
munity they  often  make  their  lives  very  unhappy,  the 
old  often  being  considered  as  a  heavy  charge,  which 
causes  great  impatience  at  the  delay  of  death.  This  is 
expressed  in  the  Italian  proverb  that  old  women  have 
seven  lives  and  the  Burgomasks  think  that  old  women 
have  seven  souls,  besides  an  eighth  soul,  quite  small, 
and  half  a  soul  besides ;  while  the  Lithuanians  complain 
that  an  old  woman  is  so  tenacious  of  life  that  she  can 
not  be  even  ground  in  a  mill.  He  cites  the  protest  of 
Paris  medical  students  against  the  decision  of  the  state 
superseding  the  law  prescribing  a  limit  of  age  for  the 
professors,  saying,  "We  do  not  want  dotards,"  A  con- 
vict in  the  Saghalien  Islands  condemned  for  the  assas- 
sination of  several  old  men  said,  "What  is  the  use  of 
making  such  a  fuss  about  them?  They  are  already  old 
and  would  die  anyway  in  a  few  years."  In  Dostoi- 
evsky's Crime  and  Punishment  one  student  declared  in 
a  group  of  his  mates  that  he  would  kill  and  rob  the 
cursed  old  woman  without  the  slightest  remorse,  and 
continues,  "On  the  one  side  we  have  a  stupid,  unfeeling 

88 


THE  HISTORY  OF  OLD  AGE 

old  woman,  of  no  account,  wicked  and  sick,  whom  no 
one  would  miss — on  the  contrary,  who  is  an  injury  to 
everyone  and  does  not  herself  know  why  she  keeps  on 
living  and  who  perhaps  will  be  good  and  dead  to-morrow ; 
while,  on  the  other  hand,  there  are  fresh  young  lives 
wasting  for  nothing  at  all,  without  being  helped  by  any- 
one, that  can  be  numbered  by  thousands."  Old  men, 
too,  often  commit  suicide.  Prussian  statistics  show  that 
people  between  50  and  80  commit  suicide  about  twice  as 
often  as  those  between  20  and  50,  and  the  same  is  true 
of  Denmark.  "The  young  and  strong  adults  furnished, 
therefore,  36^2  per  cent  of  the  suicides,  while  the  num- 
ber furnished  by  the  aged  amounted  to  63^2  per  cent." 
Metchnikoff  finds  that  "the  desire  to  live,  instead  of 
diminishing  tends,  on  the  contrary,  to  increase  with 
age."  "The  old  Fuegian  women,  aware  that  they  are 
destined  to  be  eaten,  flee  into  the  mountains,  whither 
they  are  pursued  by  the  men  and  carried  back  home 
where  they  must  submit  to  death."  "The  philosopher 
in  me  does  not  believe  in  death ;  it  is  the  old  man  who 
has  not  the  courage  to  face  the  inevitable."  And  so  it 
is  that  old  professors  rarely  wish  to  abandon  their  chairs. 
Nor  do  they  even  always  renounce  the  tender  passion, 
a  fact  illustrated  by  Goethe,  who  at  the  age  of  74  fell 
in  love  with  a  girl  of  17,  proposed  marriage  to  her,  and 
failing  in  the  project  wrote  his  pathetic  Elegy  of 
Marienbad,  in  which  he  said  "For  me  the  universe  is 
lost;  I  am  lost  to  myself.  The  gods,  whose  favorite  I 
lately  was,  have  tried  me,"  etc.  The  weakening  of  his 
powers  in  the  latter  part  of  Faust  and  at  the  end  of 
Wilhelm  Meister  was  abundantly  shown. 

We  resume  our  historical  notes  with  Luigi  Cornaro 
(1464-1566),"  a  wealthy  Venetian  nobleman,  who,  as  a 
result  of  a  wild  and  intemperate  life,  found  himself  at 

44  The  Art  of  Living  Long,  tr.  1914,  207  p. 
89 


SENESCENCE 

forty  broken  in  health  and  facing  death  and  so  radically 
changed  not  only  his  mode  of  life  but  his  residence  and 
devoted  himself,  after  this  crisis,  with  the  "most  inces- 
sant attention"  to  the  securing  of  perfect  health,  study- 
ing every  item  of  diet  and  regimen  for  its  effects  upon 
him.  At  eighty-three,  after  more  than  forty  years  of 
perfect  health  and  undisturbed  tranquillity,  he  wrote  his 
La  Vita  Sobria,  an  essay  that  was  later  followed  by 
three  others,  one  written  at  eighty-six,  another  at  ninety 
one,  the  last  at  ninety-five;  the  four  completing  a  most 
instructive  life  history  and  one  which  the  most  earnest 
desire  and  hope  of  his  life  was  that  others  might  know 
and  follow.  He  believed  that  the  kind  of  life  most 
people  lead  is  utterly  worthless  and  emphasized  the  great 
value  of  the  later  years  of  life  as  compared  with  the 
earlier  ones.  His  message  to  the  world  has  been  a 
classic.  He  hoped  that  he  had  made  the  moderate  life 
so  attractive  that  the  attitude  of  the  world  toward  old 
age  and  death  would  be  changed. 

In  his  first  discourse  he  gives  many  details  of  how  he 
conceived  life  in  the  simple  way  nature  intended  it  and 
how  we  must  learn  to  be  content  with  a  little  and  experi- 
ence all  the  joys  that  come  from  self-control.  When  the 
passions  are  subdued,  man  can  give  himself  up  wholly 
to  reason.  His  physicians  told  him  that  he  must  par- 
take of  no  food  save  that  prescribed  for  invalids  but 
he  found  that  he  must  carefully  study  each  article  of 
diet  and  decide  for  himself  because  no  general  prescrip- 
tions avail.  By  dint  of  long  observations  upon  himself 
he  started  with  the  belief  that  "whatever  tastes  good  will 
nourish  and  strengthen"  and  learned  that  "not  to  satiate 
oneself  with  food  is  the  science  of  health."  He  guarded 
particularly  against  great  heat,  cold,  and  fatigue; 
allowed  nothing  to  interfere  with  his  rest  and  sleep, 
would  never  stay  in  an  ill-ventilated  room,  and  avoided 
excessive  exposure  to  wind  and  sun.  At  the  age  of 

90 


THE  HISTORY  OF  OLD  AGE 

seventy  he  was  severely  injured  by  a  carriage  accident 
so  that  all  his  friends  expected  his  death  and  the  physi- 
cians suggested  either  bleeding  or  purging  as  forlorn 
hopes.  He  refused  both  and  trusted  to  the  recuperative 
effects  of  his  well  regulated  life.  He  recovered  com- 
pletely as  he,  indeed,  fully  expected  to  do,  although  it 
was  thought  by  his  friends  to  be  miraculous.  Later, 
yielding  reluctantly  to  the  urgency  of  physicians  and 
friends,  he  increased  his  daily  intake  of  food  so  that 
instead  of  twelve  ounces,  including  bread,  the  yolk  of 
an  egg,  a  little  meat  and  soup,  he  now  took  fourteen 
ounces;  and  instead  of  fourteen  ounces  of  wine,  as  be- 
fore, he  raised  his  ration  to  sixteen  ounces.  Under  this 
increased  diet  he  grew  seriously  ill  (at  seventy-eight). 
But  on  returning  to  his  old  dietary  he  recovered. 

Hence,  he  concludes  that  "a  man  cannot  be  a  perfect 
physician  of  anyone  except  of  himself  alone"  and  that 
by  dint  of  experimenting  he  may  "acquire  a  perfect 
knowledge  of  his  own  condition  and  of  his  most  hidden 
qualities  and  find  out  what  food  and  what  drink  and 
what  quantities  of  each  would  agree  with  his  stomach." 
"Various  experiments  are  absolutely  necessary,  for 
there  is  not  so  great  a  variety  of  features  as  there  is 
diversity  of  temperaments  and  stomachs  among  men." 
He  found  he  could  not  drink  wine  over  a  year  old,  and 
that  pepper  injured  but  cinnamon  helped  him,  something 
which  no  physician  could  have  anticipated.  He  shows 
the  fallacy  of  the  notion  that  such  a  life  leaves  nothing 
to  fall  back  upon  in  time  of  sickness  by  saying  that  such 
sickness  would  thus  be  avoided  and  that  his  dietary  is 
sufficient  so  that  in  sickness,  when  all  tend  to  eat  less, 
he  has  still  a  sufficient  margin,  although  probably  the 
quantity  or  quality  of  food  that  suits  him,  he  admits, 
might  not  suit  others.  The  objection  that  many  who 
lead  irregular  lives  live  to  be  old  he  refutes  by  saying 
that  some  have  exceptional  vitality  but  that  all  can  pro- 

91 


SENESCENCE 

long  life  by  his  method.  He  tells  us  that  he  rides  with- 
out assistance,  climbs  hills,  is  never  perturbed  in  soul, 
is  occupied  during  the  entire  day,  changes  his  residence 
in  warm  weather  to  the  country  which  he  thinks  impor- 
tant, enjoys  the  society  of  able,  cultivated,  and  active- 
minded  men,  and  all  his  senses  have  remained  perfect. 

He  tells  us  that  he  improved  upon  Sophocles,  who 
wrote  a  tragedy  at  seventy-three,  for  he  has  written  a 
comedy ;  of  his  seven  grandchildren,  all  offspring  of  one 
pair;  how  he  enjoys  singing  (probably  religious  incanta- 
tions), and  how  much  his  voice  has  improved;  that  he 
would  not  be  willing  to  exchange  "either  my  life  or  my 
great  age  for  that  of  any  young  man,"  etc.  He  praises 
his  heart,  memory,  senses,  brain,  and  is  certain  that  he 
will  die,  when  the  time  comes,  without  pain  or  illness 
and  hopes  to  enjoy  the  other  world  beyond. 

In  his  later  discourses  he  tells  us  that  although 
naturally  of  a  very  choleric  disposition  he  entirely  sub- 
dued it.  He  corrects  the  notion  that  the  old  must  eat 
much  to  keep  their  bodies  warm;  says  as  old  age  is  a 
disease  we  must  eat  less,  as  we  do  when  ill ;  refutes  the 
maxim  "a  short  life  and  a  merry  one"  and  the  fallacy 
that  one  cannot  much  prolong  or  shorten  life  by  regi- 
men ;  tells  us  exactly  what  foods  he  prefers — soup,  eggs, 
mutton,  fowl,  fish,  etc.  At  ninety-one  he  says,  "The 
more  my  years  multiply,  the  more  my  strength  also  in- 
creases," and  he  preaches  an  earthly  paradise  after  the 
age  of  eighty ;  while  at  ninety-five  he  writes  that  all  his 
faculties  "are  in  a  condition  as  perfect  as  ever  they 
were;  my  mind  is  more  than  ever  keen  and  clear,  my 
judgment  sound,  my  memory  tenacious,  my  heart  full 
of  life,"  and  his  voice  so  strong  that  he  has  to  sing 
aloud  his  morning  and  evening  prayers.  He  enjoys  two 
lives  at  the  same  time,  one  earthly  and  the  other  heavenly 
by  anticipation. 

As  Cornaro  advanced  in  years  he  grew  very  proud 
92 


THE  HISTORY  OF  OLD  AGE 

of  his  age,  and  his  four  discourses  give  us  the  impres- 
sion that  regimen  and  hygiene  were  his  true  religion, 
although  he  was  very  pious  according  to  the  standards 
of  his  age.  His  diet,  the  houses  he  built  to  live  in  for 
each  season,  his  charities,  the  public  works  he  instituted, 
and  even  the  friends  he  cultivated,  like  everything  else 
he  said  and  did,  were  determined  largely  by  what  he 
thought  were  their  effects  upon  his  physical  and  mental 
health.  No  young  man  or  young  woman  was  ever 
prouder  of  his  youth  than  he  of  his  age.  He  gloried  in 
it  as  manhood  and  womanhood  do  in  their  prime,  and 
no  evangelist  was  mere  intent  on  convicting  the  world 
of  sin,  righteousness,  and  judgment  than  he  was  in  ex- 
horting men  to  change  their  mode  of  life  to  make  it 
more  sane,  temperate,  and  abstemious — and  that  in  a 
day  and  land  when  gluttony  and  riotous  living  were  rife. 
For  him  a  feast,  rich  repast,  or  a  formal  dinner  was 
suicidal;  and  so  were  late  hours,  irregularities,  excite- 
ment, and  every  form  and  degree  of  excess.  So  superior 
is  senescence  to  all  the  other  stages  of  life  that  he  be- 
lieved men  should  be  dominated  from  the  first  by  the 
desire  to  attain  it  as  the  supreme  mundane  felicity,  be- 
cause no  one  can  be  truly  happy  but  the  old.  His  mission 
was  evidently  to  be  the  apostle  of  senescence. 

True,  he  repeats  himself,  is  often  very  platitudinous, 
no  doubt,  like  most  old  men,  greatly  overestimates  his 
powers,  and  if  a  poor  and  ignorant  man  would  have 
been,  very  likely,  a  tedious  old  dotard.  But  as  it  is,  his 
treatment  of  the  problem  of  life  is  of  great  and  lasting 
significance. 

Lord  Bacon 45  was  evidently  influenced  by  Cornaro, 
as  he  in  turn  was  by  the  abstemious  practices  of  monks 
and  ascetics.  Among  the  very  practical  suggestions  of 
his  paper  we  strike  many  quotations  that  have  become 

**  History  of  Life  and  Death. 

93 


SENESCENCE 

familiar  to  all — Men  fear  death  as  children  fear  to  go 
into  the  dark,  and  as  that  natural  fear  in  children  is 
increased  with  tales,  so  is  the  other;  since  life  is  short 
and  art  is  long,  our  chief est  aim  should  be  to  perfect 
the  arts,  and  the  greatest  of  them  all  is  that  of  long 
life.  Diet  receives  chief  consideration.  Bacon  seems 
almost  to  believe  that  the  ancients  acquired  a  mode  of 
putting  off  old  age  to  a  degree  that  has  now  become  a 
lost  art  "through  man's  negligence."  He  stresses  the 
power  of  the  "spirits"  and  its  waxing  green  again  as 
the  most  ready  and  compendious  way  to  long  life  but 
tells  us  that  it  may  be  in  excess  or  in  defect  as,  indeed, 
may  every  other  activity ;  while  the  middle  or  moderate 
way  is  always  to  be  sought.  He  discourses  on  the  neces- 
sity of  sufficient  but  not  too  much  exercise,  which  must 
never  be  taken  if  the  stomach  is  either  too  full  or  too 
empty.  "Many  dishes  have  caused  many  diseases,"  and 
many  medicines  have  caused  few  cures.  "Emaciating 
diseases,  afterwards  well  cured,  have  advanced  many 
in  the  way  of  long  life  for  they  yield  new  juice,  the  old 
being  consumed,  and  to  recover  from  a  sickness  is  to 
renew  youth.  Therefore,  it  were  good  to  make  some 
artificial  diseases,  which  is  done  by  strict  and  emaciat- 
ing diets." 

Sleep  is  an  aid  to  nourishment  and  it  is  especially  im- 
portant that  in  sleeping  the  body  always  be  warm.  Sleep 
is  nothing  but  the  reception  and  retirement  of  the  living 
spirit  into  itself.  We  must  also  be  cheerful  in  relation 
to  both  sleep  and  eating  and  he  has  many  admonitions 
upon  the  advantages  of  pure  air,  the  right  affection, 
hope  not  too  often  frustrated,  and  especially  a  sense  of 
progress,  for  most  who  live  long  have  felt  themselves 
advancing.  Old  men  should  dwell  upon  their  childhood 
and  youth,  for  this  means  rejuvenation.  Hence  associa- 
tion of  the  old  with  others  whom  they  knew  when  young 
is  most  helpful.  Habits,  customs,  and  even  diet,  must 

94 


THE  HISTORY  OF  OLD  AGE 

be  changed,  but  not  too  often  or  too  much.  One  must 
constantly  observe  and  study  the  effect  upon  himself 
of  all  the  items  of  regimen.  Grief,  depression,  excessive 
fear,  lack  of  patience,  are  passions  that  feed  upon  and 
age  the  body.  Each  must  acquire  a  wisdom  "beyond 
the  rules  of  physic;  a  man's  own  observation,  what  he 
finds  good  of  and  what  he  finds  hurt  of,  is  the  best  physic 
to  preserve  health,  and  with  regard  to  many  things  he 
must  wisely  and  rightly  decide  whether  or  not  they  are 
good  or  bad  for  him,  and  that  independently  of  all 
precepts  and  advice." 

Thus  in  his  quaint  style,  and  for  reasons  most  of 
which  science  of  to-day  would  utterly  discard,  he  had 
the  sagacity  to  reach  many  of  the  conclusions  that  are 
quite  abreast  of  and  in  conformity  with  the  most  prac- 
tical results  of  modern  hygiene. 

Addison,48  avowedly  more  or  less  inspired  by  Cornaro, 
after  condemning  the  prevailing  gluttony  says,  "For  my 
part,  when  I  behold  a  fashionable  table  set  out  in  all  its 
magnificence,  I  fancy  that  I  see  gouts  and  dyspepsias, 
fevers  and  lethargies,  and  other  distempers  lying  in 
ambuscade  among  the  dishes."  He  delights  in  the  most 
plain  and  simple  diet.  Every  animal  but  man  keeps  to 
one  dish — herbs  are  the  food  of  this  species,  fish  of  that, 
and  flesh  of  the  third.  Man  alone  falls  upon  everything 
that  comes  in  his  way.  "Not  the  smallest  fruit  or  ex- 
crescence of  the  earth,  scarce  a  berry  or  mushroom 
escapes  him."  Hence  he  advises  that  we  make  our  whole 
repast  out  of  one  dish  and  that  we  avoid  all  artificial 
-provocatives,  which  create  false  appetites.  He  advises, 
too,  that  since  this  rule  is  so  hard,  "every  man  should 
have  his  days  of  abstinence  according  as  his  constitution 
will  permit.  These  are  great  reliefs  to  nature  as  they 
qualify  her  for  struggling  with  hunger  and  thirst  and 

"Spectator,  Oct.  17,  1711. 

95 


SENESCENCE 

give  her  an  opportunity  of  extricating  herself  from  her 
oppressions.  Besides  that,  abstinence  will  oftentimes 
kill  a  sickness  in  embryo  and  destroy  the  first  seeds  of 
an  indisposition."  He  then  quotes  the  temperateness  of 
Socrates,  which  enabled  him  to  survive  the  great  plague. 
He  finds  that  many  ancient  sages  and  later  philosophers 
developed  a  regimen  so  unique  that  "one  would  think 
the  life  of  a  philosopher  and  the  life  of  a  man  were  of 
two  different  dates." 

Robert  Burton 4T  thinks  old  age  inherently  melancholy, 
for  "being  cold  and  dry  and  of  the  same  quality  as 
melancholy  it  must  needs  come  in."  It  is  full  of  ache, 
sorrow,  grief,  and  most  other  faults,  and  these  traits 
are  most  developed  in  old  women  and  best  illustrated  by 
witches.  The  children  of  old  men  are  rarely  of  good 
temperament  and  are  especially  liable  to  depression.  He 
expatiates  most  fully  upon  the  tragedy  of  old  men  and 
young  wives,  and  gives  many  long  incidents  of  jealousy 
and  unfaithfulness  of  women  who,  although  carefully 
guarded,  have  made  old  husbands  cuckold.  This  is  often 
worse  in  dotards,  who  become  effeminate,  cannot  endure 
absence  from  their  wives,  etc.  On  this  theme  he 
elaborates  for  many  pages,  with  scores  of  incidents  from 
literature  and  history. 

Jonathan  Swift 48  describes  the  Struldbruggs  or  im- 
mortals whom  he  met  in  a  far  country.  They  were 
distinguished  by  being  born  with  a  red  circle  over  the 
left  eye,  which  changed  in  color  and  grew  in  size  with 
age.  These  beings,  he  thought,  must  be  a  great  blessing, 
and  he  described  to  those  who  had  first  told  him  of  them 
what  he  would  do  were  it  his  great  good  fortune  to  be 
born  a  Struldbrugg.  First  of  all,  he  would  amass  wealth 
so  that  in  two  hundred  years  he  would  be  the  richest 


**  The  Anatomy  of  Melancholy. 
*  Gulliver's  Travels,  Chap.  X. 


THE  HISTORY  OF  OLD  AGE 

man  in  the  realm.  Next  he  would  apply  himself  to  learn- 
ing, which  in  the  course  of  time  would  make  him  wisest 
of  all  men.  Then  he  would  note  all  events  and  become 
a  living  treasury  of  knowledge  and  the  oracle  of  the 
nation.  He  would  be  able  to  warn  rising  generations 
against  all  impending  evils  and  thus  prevent  degenera- 
tion. 

Having  heard  his  ideals,  he  was  told  that  in  fact  the 
state  of  these  immortals  was  very  different;  indeed,  so 
pitiful  was  It  that  their  example  mitigated  the  universal 
desire  to  live,  so  that  death  was  no  longer  the  greatest 
evil  but,  on  the  contrary,  undue  prolongation  of  life  was 
a  far  greater  one.  The  Struldbruggs  acted  like  mortals 
till  about  thirty,  then  grew  melancholy  until  four-score, 
when  they  had  "not  only  the  follies  and  infirmities  of 
other  old  men  but  had  many  more  which  arose  from  the 
dreadful  prospects  of  never  dying."  "They  were  not 
only  opinionative,  peevish,  morose,  vain,  talkative,  but 
incapable  of  friendship  and  dead  to  all  natural  affection, 
which  never  descended  below  their  grandchildren." 
"Envy  and  impotent  desires  are  their  prevailing  passion, 
but  the  objects  against  which  their  envy  seems  princi- 
pally directed  are  the  vices  of  the  younger  sort  and  the 
deaths  of  the  old.  By  reflecting  on  the  former  they 
find  themselves  cut  off  from  all  possibility  of  pleasure, 
and  whenever  they  see  a  funeral  they  lament  and  repine 
that  others  are  gone  to  a  harbor  of  rest  to  which  they 
themselves  can  never  hope  to  arrive."  "They  have  no 
remembrance  of  anything  but  what  they  learned  and 
observed  in  their  youth  and  middle  age  and  even  that 
is  very  imperfect,  and  for  the  truth  or  particulars  of 
any  fact  it  is  safer  to  depend  on  the  common  traditions 
than  upon  their  best  recollections."  "The  less  miserable 
among  them  appear  to  be  those  who  turn  to  dotage  and 
entirely  lose  their  memories ;  they  meet  with  more  pity 
and  assistance  because  they  lack  many  bad  qualities 

97 


SENESCENCE 

which  abound  in  others."  If  they  marry  one  of  their 
own  kind,  the  marriage  is  dissolved  as  soon  as  the 
younger  comes  to  be  four-score,  for  they  "should  not 
have  their  misery  doubled  by  the  load  of  a  wife." 

"As  soon  as  they  have  completed  the  term  of  eighty 
years  they  are  looked  on  as  dead  in  law;  their  heirs 
immediately  succeed  to  their  estates,  only  a  small  pit- 
tance being  reserved  for  their  support,  and  the  poor 
ones  are  maintained  at  the  public  charge.  After  that 
period  they  are  held  incapable  of  any  employment  of 
trust  or  privilege,  cannot  purchase  land  or  take  leases; 
neither  are  they  allowed  to  be  witnesses  in  any  cause 
either  civil  or  criminal."  "At  ninety  they  lose  their  teeth 
and  hair,  they  have  at  that  age  no  distinction  of  taste 
but  eat  and  drink  whatever  they  can  get,  without  relish 
or  appetite."  In  talking,  they  forget  the  common  appel- 
lation of  things  and  the  names  of  persons,  even  of  those 
who  are  their  nearest  friends  and  relatives.  "For  the 
same  reason  they  can  never  amuse  themselves  with  read- 
ing because  their  memory  will  not  serve  to  carry  them 
from  the  beginning  of  a  sentence  to  the  end.  The  lan- 
guage of  the  country,  too,  is  slowly  undergoing  a  change 
so  that  the  Struldbruggs  of  one  age  do  not  understand 
those  of  another  but  live  like  foreigners  in  their  own 
country."  They  are  depised  and  hated  by  all  sorts  of 
people.  When  one  of  them  is  born  it  is  reckoned  ominous 
and  the  birth  is  recorded  very  particularly,  but  in  gen- 
eral the  record  is  lost  after  a  thousand  years.  "They 
were  the  most  mortifying  sight  I  ever  beheld,  and  the 
women  were  more  horrible  than  the  men.  Besides  the 
usual  deformities  in  extreme  old  age,  they  acquired  an 
additional  ghastliness  in  proportion  to  their  number  of 
years." 

Thus  from  what  the  author  saw  and  heard,  his  keen 
appetite  for  perpetuity  of  life  was  much  abated  and  he 
realized  that  there  was  no  form  of  death  to  which  he 

98 


THE  HISTORY  OF  OLD  AGE 

would  not  run  with  pleasure  in  order  to  escape  such  a 
life.  He  concludes  that  it  is  fortunate  that  his  desire 
of  taking  specimens  of  these  people  to  his  own  country 
was  forbidden  by  law,  and  reflects  that  their  mainte- 
nance might  prove  a  grievous  public  charge,  for  since 
"avarice  is  the  necessary  consequent  of  old  age,  these 
immortals  would,  in  time,  become  proprietors  of  the 
whole  nation  and  engross  the  civil  power,  which  a  want 
of  abilities  to  manage  must  end  in  the  ruin  of  the 
public." 


CHAPTER  III 

LITERATURE  BY  AND  ON  THE  AGED 

Harriet  E.  Paine— Amelia  E.  Barr— Mortimer  Collins— Col.  Nicholas 
Smith— Byron  C.  Utecht— J.  L.  Smith— San  ford  Bennett— G.  E.  D. 
Diamond — Cardinal  Gibbons — John  Burroughs — Rollo  Ogden — James  L. 
Ludlow— Brander  Matthews— Ralph  Waldo  Emerson— Oliver  Wendell 
Holmes— Senator  G.  F.  Hoar— William  Dean  Howells— H.  D.  Sedg- 
wick— Walt  Mason— E.  P.  Powell— U.  V.  Wilson— D.  G.  Brinton— 
N.  S.  Shaler— Anthony  Trollope— Stephen  Paget— Richard  le  Gallienne 
— G.  S.  Street— C.  W.  Saleeby— Bernard  Shaw— A  few  typical  poems 
and  quotations. 

As  a  psychologist  I  am  convinced  that  the  psychic 
states  of  old  people  have  great  significance.  Senescence, 
like  adolescence,  has  its  own  feelings,  thoughts,  and 
wills,  as  well  as  its  own  physiology,  and  their  regimen 
is  important,  as  well  as  that  of  the  body.  Individual 
differences  here  are  probably  greater  than  in  youth.  I 
wanted  to  realize  as  fully  as  was  practicable  how  it  seems 
to  be  old.  Accordingly  I  looked  over  such  literature, 
both  poetry  and  prose,  as  I  found  within  reach,  written 
by  aging  people  describing  their  own  stage  of  life,  and 
by  selection,  quotation,  and  resume  have  sought,  in  this 
chapter,  to  let  each  of  them  speak  for  him-  or  herself. 

Some  find  a  veritable  charm  in  watching  every  phase 
of  the  sunset  of  their  own  life  and  feel  even  in  the 
prospect  of  death  a  certain  mental  exaltation.  More 
are  sadly  patient  and  accept  some  gospel  of  reconcilia- 
tion to  fate.  Some  distinctly  refuse  to  think  on  or  even 
to  recognize  the  ebb  of  the  tide.  A  few  find  consolation 
in  beautifying  age  with  tropes  and  similes  that  divert 
or  distract  from  the  grim  realization  of  its  advance. 

100 


LITERATURE  BY  AND  ON  THE  AGED 

But  perhaps  the  most  striking  fact  is  that  so  many 
not  only  deliberately  turn  from  the  supports  offered  to 
declining  years  by  the  Church  but  have  more  or  less 
abandoned  faith  in  physicians,  for  age  is  a  disease  that 
their  ministrations  may  mitigate  but  can  never  cure. 
Men  of  science  find  least  solace  in  religion,  to  which 
women  are  much  more  prone  to  turn  than  men.  In  most, 
love  is  more  or  less  sublimated  into  philanthropy  and 
very  often  into  a  new  and  higher  love  of  nature  in  all 
her  aspects.  All,  with  hardly  an  exception,  pay  far  more 
attention  to  health  and  body-keeping  than  ever  before 
and  many  evolve  an  almost  f etishistic  faith  in  the  efficacy 
of  some  item  of  food  or  regimen  to  which  they  ascribe 
peculiar  virtue.  They  want  to  prolong  life  and  well- 
being  to  their  utmost  goal  for,  with  all  the  handicaps 
of  age,  life  is  still  too  sweet  to  leave  voluntarily. 

Many  old  people  fortify  themselves  against  the  de- 
pressions and  remissions  of  old  age  by  familiarizing 
their  minds  with  quotations  from  the  Scriptures,  hym- 
nology,  poetry,  and  general  literature.  We  have  a  good 
illustration  of  this  in  Margaret  E.  White's  volume.1  It 
consists  mainly  of  selections,  determined  of  course  by 
the  author's  point  of  view — that  of  a  liberal  religionist 
— which  has  given  her,  and  is  well  calculated  to  give 
others  with  her  point  of  view,  mental  satisfaction.  She 
wants  to  have  "prisms  in  her  window"  to  fill  the  room 
with  rainbows.  As  the  shadows  lengthen  she  believes 
the  climacteric  should  supervene  without  any  break  at 
all  with  the  prime  of  life,  although  there  are  really  two 
curves  that  run  a  very  different  course,  one  of  physical 
strength  and  another  of  experience.  When  one  stands 
on  the  summit  of  his  years,  he  is  buoyed  up  by  great 
plans  for  life;  but  when  he  retires,  there  is  nothing 
ahead  save  death  and  this  involves  a  great  and  often 

1 After  Noontide,  Boston,  1883,  168  p. 
101 


SENESCENCE 

critical  change.  The  successful  life  is  one  that  solves 
the  problems  that  meet  it  here  without  patheticism  and 
without  self-delusion. 

The  author's  anthology  of  quotations  and  her  own 
reflections  are  not  a  cry  in  the  dark  but,  on  the  whole, 
strike  a  note  of  courage  and  her  book  is  of  psychological 
value  because  it  gives  us  a  good  idea  of  how  many 
authors  have  thought  and  felt.  Most  want  to  be  quiet 
and  at  home.  They  console  themselves  with  intimations 
of  a  lofty  and  spiritual,  if  remote,  idealism.  Perhaps 
of  all  the  young  people  we  knew  not  one  will  accompany 
the  late  survivors.  Old  age  is  a  benefaction  because 
service  to  it  ennobles  all  who  render  it.  When  wrinkles 
come  in  the  mind,  one  sings,  the  old  is  ever  old ;  another, 
it  is  ever  young.  One  conceives  it  as  the  portal  to  a 
higher  life,  while  for  another  it  is  solely  reversionary. 

Harriet  E.  Paine,2  a  retired  maiden  teacher,  had 
grown  deaf  and  her  sight  was  dim  at  sixty,  when  this 
book  was  written.  Her  attitude  is  one  of  the  very  best 
illustrations  of  the  consolations  that  are  open  to  those 
in  whom  old  age  is  like  a  summer  night,  who  can  main- 
tain their  optimism  when  the  senses  cut  us  off  from  the 
external  world  and  we  have  to  "economize  the  falling 
river"  and  take  in  sail.  The  author  has  much  to  say 
of  old  people  with  defective  senses  and  thinks  deafness 
particularly  irritating  both  to  the  individual  and  to  those 
about,  especially  if,  as  in  her  case,  there  is  also  weak- 
ness and  diffidence.  These  impel  one  to  take  refuge  in 
the  "Great  Comrade."  Like  so  many  others,  she  finds 
great  satisfaction  in  the  familiar  cases  of  great  things 
done  by  old  people  and  thinks  that  "the  higher  powers 
of  the  mind  go  on  ripening  to  the  last,"  instancing  the 
remarkable  fight  made  for  life  by  Pope  Leo  XIII  when 
he  was  ninety-four,  the  chief  items  in  whose  enlightened 
policy  were  inaugurated  after  he  was  seventy.  Samuel 
'Old  People,  Boston,  1909,  236  p. 

102 


LITERATURE  BY  AND  ON  THE  AGED 

Whittemore,  at  eighty,  killed  three  British  soldiers  on 
April  19,  1775,  and  then  was  himself  shot,  bayoneted, 
and  beaten  seemingly  to  death  but  had  vitality  enough 
to  live  on  to  the  age  of  ninety-eight.  Sophocles  wrote 
his  CEdipus  at  ninety;  Mrs.  Gilbert  acted  till  over 
seventy;  Mrs.  Livermore,  Julia  Ward  Howe,  and 
others  furnish  examples  that  hearten  her,  etc.  When 
the  hair  grows  white  it  is  possible,  especially  for  women, 
to  do  many  things  impossible  before. 

Being  herself  in  straitened  circumstances,  she  is  in- 
terested in,  for  example,  the  provisions  of  the  New 
Zealand  Parliament  in  1898  granting  a  pension  of 
eighteen  pounds  per  annum  to  all  people  over  sixty-five 
of  good  moral  character  who  had  resided  in  the  country 
twenty-five  years  and  whose  income  did  not  exceed 
thirty-four  pounds ;  and  also  in  Edward  Everett  Hale's 
plea  for  a  limited  old-age  pension  bill,  whereby  a  man 
paying  a  poll  tax  for  twenty-five  years  and  not  con- 
victed of  crime  should  be  given  a  pension  of  two  dollars 
a  week,  the  state  to  set  aside  a  part  of  the  poll  tax  for 
this  purpose.  He  claimed  that  the  savings  to  poorhouses 
would  offset  the  expenditure.  But  still  this  author  real- 
izes that  the  old  can  be  happy  in  comparative  poverty 
if  they  strive  to  make  their  corner  of  the  world  brighter. 
At  no  time  of  life  are  the  advantages  of  culture  and 
experience  more  precious.  She  thinks  the  relations  be- 
tween old  and  young,  so  hard  to  adjust,  need  special 
attention.  The  two  can  live  together  only  by  sacrifices 
on  both  sides  and  this  can  never  be  successful  unless 
each  is  able  to  take  the  other's  point  of  view.  She  rather 
surprisingly  concedes  that  with  true  insight  the  young 
have  more  sympathy  with  the  old  than  the  latter,  by 
memory,  can  have  with  the  young,  perhaps  because 
bodily  vigor  increases  love.  She  would  mitigate  the 
stage  of  criticizing  mothers,  through  which  she  thinks 
all  girls  tend  to  pass,  for  old  age  gives  a  wisdom  that 
103 


SENESCENCE 

is    far   harder   to   acquire    and    more   precious    than 
knowledge. 

The  very  old  are  very  different  from  the  old;  for 
example,  an  old  lady  of  eighty-nine  called  on  one  of 
ninety-eight  and  felt  rejuvenated.  Very  few  do,  when 
they  are  old,  what  they  have  planned  for  their  old  age. 
The  weapon  against  loneliness  is  work.  "When  the 
world  is  cold  to  you,  go  build  fires  to  warm  up."  We 
strive  to  renew  the  emotions  but  find  it  very  hard  to 
do  so  and  feel  burned  to  the  socket.  In  answering  the 
question  how  far  we  should  let  the  dead  past  bury  its 
dead,  she  deplores  the  fact  that  young  persons,  espe- 
cially young  women,  often  give  to  their  elders,  particu- 
larly mothers  or  fathers,  a  devotion  that  involves  a 
complete  sacrifice  of  their  own  lives  and  thinks  that  to 
accept  this  is  the  acme  of  selfishness  in  the  old.  Old 
age  is  especially  hard,  she  thinks,  for  those  who  have 
enjoyed  the  senses  most. 

Amelia  E.  Barr3  says  that  on  March  29,  1911,  she 
awoke  early  to  see  her  eightieth  birthday  come  in.  "I 
wish  to  master  in  these  years  the  fine  art  of  dying  well, 
which  is  quite  as  great  a  lesson  as  the  fine  art  of  living 
well,  about  which  everyone  is  so  busy."  A  good  old 
age  is  a  neighbor  to  a  blessed  eternity.  An  English 
physician  said,  "If  you  wish  to  have  a  vigorous  old  age, 
go  into  the  darkness  and  silence  ten  hours  out  of  every 
twenty-four,  for  in  darkness  we  were  formed."  "Never 
allow  anyone  to  impose  their  pleasures  upon  you ;  if  you 
have  any  rights,  it  is  to  choose  the  way  you  will  spend 
your  time."  "On  the  margin  gray,  twixt  night  and  day," 
the  author  finds  special  comfort  in  the  lines 

There  is  no  death. 

What  seems  so  is  transition. 

This  life  or  mortal  breath  is  but  the  suburb  of  the  life  elysian 
Whose  portal  we  call  death. 

'  Three-score  and  Ten,    Dedicated  to  Chauncey  Depew. 
T04 


LITERATURE  BY  AND  ON  THE  AGED 

It  is  a  sin,  she  says,  to  become  so  mentally  active  that 
we  are  unable  to  keep  quiet  and  go  to  sleep.  The  Greeks 
knew  little  of  insomnia  and  the  English  have  been  great 
sleepers  and  dreamers,  holding  perhaps  with  Words- 
worth that  "our  birth  is  but  a  sleep  and  a  forgetting," 
etc. 

This  author  is  an  astrologist  and  tells  us  that  nine 
insane  rulers  were  born  when  Mercury  or  the  moon,  or 
both,  were  affected  by  Mars,  Saturn,  or  Uranus,  and  five 
people  of  genius  were  ruled  by  the  same  planets  and 
became  insane.  She  really  mourns  less  for  what  age 
takes  away  than  what  it  leaves  behind. 

The  tone  of  her  work  differs  radically  from  that  of 
Miss  Paine.  The  latter  seeks  and  finds  compensations 
so  satisfactory  to  herself  that  she  ventures  into  print 
with  them,  apparently  for  the  first  time,  hoping  that  she 
may  thereby  help  others  to  live  out  their  old  age  better ; 
while  the  former  indulges  her  literary  instincts  to  pro- 
duce another  book  and  is  far  more  inspired  by  the  muse 
of  Death  than  that  of  Life.  The  kismet  motive,  which 
is  expressed  in  her  recourse  to  astral  fatalism,  manifests 
not  a  pis  aller  resource  first  found  when  she  was  old  but 
one  that  had  long  been  with  her,  and  it  is  an  interesting 
recrudescence  of  the  same  psychological  motivations 
that  in  the  East  made  fatalism  and  among  Calvinists 
made  the  doctrine  of  divine  decrees  and  foreordination 
so  attractive. 

At  the  age  of  eighty-three  she  worked  six  hours  a  day 
instead  of  nine  as  formerly,  avoided  routine,  tried  to  give 
her  mind  new  thoughts,  and  thought  this  mental  diet 
kept  her  strong.  She  took  two  cups  of  coffee  in  the 
morning  and  more  at  night,  persisted  in  lying  abed  ten 
hours  although  she  slept  but  seven,  eschewed  all  pre- 
served fruits,  etc.  She  had  a  constant  sense  of  the 
Divine  and  her  whole  standpoint  is  very  different  from 
that,  for  example,  of  Burroughs. 

105 


SENESCENCE 

Mortimer  Collins  4  looks  back  on  a  prolonged  life  with 
calm  philosophic  poise  and  concludes  that  length  of  life 
is  wholly  dependent  upon  ideas.  The  theory  of  Asgill 
that  it  is  cowardly  of  man  to  die  appeals  to  him. 
Sylvester  calculated  the  lives  of  nine  mathemeticians 
with  an  average  age  of  79,  but  Collins  finds  nine  literary 
men  whose  average  age  was  85,  and  so  concludes  that 
"imagination  beats  calculation."  We  are  islands  in  an 
infinite  sea;  only  the  instant  is  ours.  The  soul  makes 
the  body.  He  holds  that  in  England  there  is  no  mode 
of  life  healthy  enough  to  secure  longevity,  either  in  the 
city  or  country,  while  London  is  a  slow  poison.  He 
wants  a  Utopia,  but  without  religion.  He  would  have  a 
journal  kept  in  every  locality  noting  length  or  brevity 
of  life,  with  the  causes  thereof,  as  a  kind  of  vade  Mecum 
for  the  inhabitants.  All  should  live  in  the  open,  with 
plenty  of  water  and  hills,  enough  sleep  and  good  food. 
Marriage  should  be  congenial  and  love  a  liberal  educa- 
tion; in  short,  marriage  should  be  completion.  Parents 
early  spoil  their  children  and  later  fear  them.  Politics 
should  be  eschewed  for  it  shows  only  the  worst  side  of 
human  nature.  We  should  have  books  telling  us  how 
to  enjoy  summers,  the  secret  of  which  even  the  English 
gentleman  has  not  yet  found.  Literature,  especially  the 
classics,  helps  to  longevity,  and  in  old  age  people  should 
do  that  which  they  most  love,  that  is  most  natural  and 
that  gives  greatest  freedom  to  the  play  instinct — not  that 
which  pays  best.  Gardening  takes  us  into  partnership 
with  God  and  he  prescribes  country  walks  with  the  sun 
and  the  sea.  The  country  gentleman  should  live  an  al- 
most Homeric  life.  The  large  number  of  octogenarians 
in  Westmoreland,  the  lake  region  of  Wordsworth,  which 
has  often  been  noticed,  is  very  significant.  The  laziest 
man  usually  lives  longest,  but  lazing  is  an  art. 

•  The  Secret  of  Long  Life,  London,  1871,  146  p. 

106 


LITERATURE  BY  AND  ON  THE  AGED 

The  style  of  this  author  is  in  places  almost  lapidary, 
his  views  are  quaint  and  abrupt  and  the  reader  is  im- 
pressed with  the  idea  that  he  is  supremely  satisfied 
with  old  age  as  he  has  found  it.  His  radicalism  is  good- 
natured  and  his  love  of  paradox  suggests  an  affectation 
of  originality  that  does  not,  however,  much  impair  his 
fundamental  sincerity.  He  illustrates  a  type  of  preco- 
cious maturity  that  finds  pleasure  in  ideas  not  very  well 
matured. 

Colonel  Nicholas  Smith 5  is  a  homely  philosopher  of 
old  age  who  has  brought  together  a  vast  body  of  items 
to  hearten  the  old  and  to  support  the  thesis  that  all  can 
greatly  prolong  their  lives  if  they  will.  He  thinks  that 
as  years  advance  the  average  brain  does  more  work,  and 
the  body  less.  With  remarkable  industry  he  has  gath- 
ered records  of  scores  and  hundreds  of  old  people  living, 
or  recently  dead,  who  have  maintained  their  vigor  and 
remained  "invincible  children,"  who  never  became 
wholly  sophisticated  but  still  dream,  wonder,  and  be- 
lieve. He  almost  seems  to  agree  with  Emerson  that  a 
man  is  not  worth  very  much  until  he  is  sixty. 

Most  of  his  book  consists  of  brief  records  of  men  who 
maintained  their  activity  to  a  great  age.  Many  of  these 
are  familiar  enough  but  we  sample  a  few.  Mommsen, 
for  example,  frail  and  small,  lost  his  library  by  fire  when 
he  was  sixty,  a  calamity  that  all  thought  would  end  his 
career.  But  he  did  much  of  his  best  work  later,  toiling 
on  his  History  of  Rome  nearly  to  his  death  in  his  eighty- 
sixth  year.  George  Ives,  when  his  friends  congratu- 
lated him  on  attaining  his  hundredth  year,  was  found 
at  work  in  the  field  and  said  that  even  if  he  knew  he 
were  to  die  the  next  day  he  should  "carry  on"  as  if  he 
were  immortal.  Mrs.  H.  W.  Truex  on  her  Q6th  birth- 
day in  1904  finished  a  quilt  of  nine  hundred  and  seventy- 

"  Masters  of  Old  Age,  Milwaukee,  1915,  280  p. 
107 


SENESCENCE 

five  pieces  and  during  the  previous  year  had  completed 
six  such.  Sir  Joseph  Hooker,  the  botanist,  worked  al- 
most up  to  his  death  at  87,  holding  that  rich  natures 
develop  slowly.  Carlyle  published  the  last  volume  of 
his  Frederick  the  Great  at  the  age  of  69;  Darwin,  his 
Descent  of  Man  at  62 ;  Longfellow  wrote  his  Morituri 
Salutamus  for  the  fiftieth  anniversary  of  his  graduation ; 
W.  C.  Bryant  published  his  translation  of  the  Odyssey 
at  the  age  of  76;  O.  W.  Holmes  wrote  his  "Guardian 
Angel"  at  70  and  "Antipathy"  at  76,  while  the  "Iron 
Gate"  was  for  a  breakfast  given  in  honor  of  his  seven- 
tieth birthday;  George  Bancroft  at  82  published  his 
History  of  the  Foundations  of  the  Constitution  of  the 
United  States;  Frances  Trollope,  failing  in  business  at 
the  age  of  nearly  50  and  a  stranger  in  this  country, 
turned  to  a  literary  career,  and  between  the  ages  of  52 
and  83  wrote  upwards  of  a  hundred  volumes,  mostly 
novels  of  society ;  Humboldt,  at  the  age  of  74,  began  his 
Cosmos,  the  fourth  and  last  volume  of  which  was  issued 
the  year  before  his  death,  in  1858,  at  the  age  of  ninety; 
Cervantes  published  the  last  part  of  his  Don  Quixote 
at  78;  Goethe  wrote  till  he  was  80  and  finished  the 
second  part  of  Faust  only  shortly  before  his  death; 
Victor  Hugo  wrote  his  Annals  of  a  Terrible  Year  at  70, 
and  his  Ninety-Three,  which  some  regard  as  his  best 
story,  at  the  age  of  72 ;  Mary  Sommerville  kept  up  her 
scientific  activities  and  at  92  said  she  could  still  read 
books  on  the  higher  algebra  four  to  five  hours  in  the 
forenoon ;  Weir  Mitchell  wrote  his  Hugh  Wynne  at  66 
and  Constance  Trescot,  a  very  remarkable  psychological 
study  of  a  woman,  when  he  was  76.  A  deposed  minister 
began  the  study  of  medicine  at  72  and  practiced  for 
several  years,  dying  in  the  harness.  A.  J.  Huntington 
was  acting  professor  of  classics  till  he  was  82.  Mrs. 
A.  D.  T.  Whitney  published  her  twenty-seventh  volume 
at  the  age  of  80,  etc. 

108 


LITERATURE  BY  AND  ON  THE  AGED 

There  are  two  views  of  age.  One  is  Hogarth's  pic- 
ture— a  shattered  bottle,  cracked  bell,  unstrung  bow, 
signpost  of  a  tavern  called  the  "World's  End,"  ship- 
wreck, Phoebus's  horses  dead  in  the  clouds,  the  moon  in 
her  last  quarter,  the  world  on  fire.  It  only  remained  to 
add  to  this  the  picture  of  a  painter's  palette  broken.  This 
was  his  last  work  and  he  died  at  67.  Over  against  this 
we  might  place  E.  E.  Hale,  who  late  in  life  said  his 
prospects  cast  no  shadow  and  became  very  anxious  to 
see  the  curtain  rise.  When  he  was  80  he  published  his 
Memoirs  of  a  Hundred  Years  and  at  82  was  chaplain 
of  the  United  States  Senate.  Gladstone  locked  every 
affair  of  state  out  of  his  bedroom  and  said  that  when  we 
sleep  we  must  pay  attention  to  it,  for  a  workless  is  a 
worthless  life. 

This  author  agrees  with  J.  H.  Canfield,  who  protested 
that  the  old  should  stay  in  the  harness  and  not  step  out 
to  give  the  young  men  a  chance,  for  they  never  had  a 
better  chance  than  to  work  with  their  elders,  as  colts 
are  best  broken  in  with  old  horses.  As  we  grow  old 
we  see  that  nothing,  after  all,  matters  as  much  as  we 
had  thought.  Smith  finds  comfort  in  the  fact  that, 
according  to  the  census  of  1900,  one  in  every  two  hun- 
dred becomes  an  octogenarian  and  that  out  of  a  popula- 
tion of  36,800,000  there  were  176,571  reputed  to  be  80 
years  of  age  or  over. 

He  finally  gives  us  his  own  empirical  observations 
about  foods  and  concludes  that  three-fourths  of  all  the 
poor  health  in  the  country  is  due  to  dietary  errors  or 
to  "carrion  and  cathartics."  The  old  should  eat  no 
meat,  take  no  drink  with  meals,  avoid  starch,  recognize 
the  error  in  the  belief  that  they  need  stimulants,  and 
should  not  try  to  be  fat  but  realize  that  progressive 
emaciation  is  normal.  Appetite  should  be  our  guide 
although  we  should  eat  only  about  half  what  we  want. 
He,  too,  praises  laziness  as  a  concomitant  of  longevity 

109 


SENESCENCE 

and  recognizes  a  vast  difference  in  dietary  needs.  He 
would  never  use  laxatives  but  depends  upon  two  glasses 
of  water  half  an  hour  before  breakfast  and  two  in  the 
afternoon,  and  would  never  mix  cooked  vegetables  nor 
fruit. 

The  popularity  and  wide  sale  of  this  book  must  have 
been  extremely  gratifying  to  the  author  as  not  only 
showing  wide  and  deep  interest  in  the  subject  but  as 
also  supplying,  by  copious  data  and  illustrations,  the  kind 
of  encouragement  the  old  often  sorely  need.  The  author 
makes  no  pretenses  of  being  scientific  and  accepts  cases 
of  reputed  great  age  with  no  critical  scruples. 

Byron  C.  Utecht 6  thinks  the  day  is  dawning  when 
one  hundred  and  fifty  years  will  be  the  usual  span  of 
life.  He  gives  many  statistics  to  show  that  the  average 
age  is  slowly  increasing,  particularly  in  Switzerland, 
where  in  the  sixteenth  century  it  was  21.2  years  whereas 
in  the  nineteenth  it  was  39.7.  He  quotes  Finkenberg 
of  Bonn,  who  concludes  that  "the  average  length  of 
life  in  Europe  in  the  sixteenth  century  was  18  years 
and  now  it  is  40,"  the  average  in  India  being  now  about 
23.6  years  as  against  19,  two  hundred  years  ago.  These 
figures,  it  should  be  noted,  however,  are  little  more  than 
conjectural. 

Utecht,  like  Colonel  Smith,  has  collected  data  about 
many  people  who  have  reached  the  age  of  100,  some  of 
whom  he  photographs.  He  believes  man  not  only  lives 
longer  but  is  more  vital  than  formerly.  He  seems  to 
accept  without  proof  that  a  Montana  Indian  lived  to 
be  134;  an  Oregon  woman,  120;  and  a  Mrs.  Kilcrease 
of  Texas,  136.  He  tells  us  of  one  Arkansas  woman 
who  reached  112  years,  keeping  a  large  garden  almost 
to  the  end  of  her  life,  who  at  the  above  age  walked  six 
miles  and  back  to  see  her  great-great-granddaughter 

•"When  Is  Man  Immortal?"  Technical  World,  March,  1914. 
110 


LITERATURE  BY  AND  ON  THE  AGED 

married.  She  claimed  her  age  was  due  to  clean,  honest 
living,  plenty  of  work,  a  desire  to  help,  keeping  busy, 
and  caring  for  others.  A.  Goodwin  of  Alabama  (106) 
walks  five  miles  a  day  and  works  several  hours  in  his 
garden.  He  eats  what  he  likes,  reads  without  glasses, 
and  is  the  head  of  one  of  the  largest  families  in  the 
country,  their  reunions  being  attended  by  more  than 
eight  hundred  persons.  He  had  been  a  hunter  and  still 
uses  his  rifle  and  ascribes  his  longevity  to  interest  in 
out-of-door  sports  as  a  young  man.  He  has  been  so 
busy  he  can  hardly  realize  he  is  old,  wants  fifty  years 
more  of  life  if  possible  and  feels  that  he  is  going  to  have 
it.  He  has  been  temperate,  sleeps  much  and  regularly, 
and  has  a  horror  of  worry.  Mrs.  Mary  Harrison  of 
Michigan  celebrated  her  hundredth  anniversary  and  did 
not  seem  as  tired  as  any  of  her  two  hundred  guests. 
She  had  been  a  humorist  and  would  never  look  on  the 
dark  side  of  things.  An  Ohio  lady  of  91  who  has  been 
devoted  to  a  motorcycle  cannot  bring  herself  to  give  up 
her  joyrides,  although  she  now  has  a  young  man  to  guide 
the  wheel.  She  has  always  lived  in  the  country  and 
worked  hard  and  ascribes  her  longevity  chiefly  to  her 
rides. 

Utecht  has  collected  perhaps  two-score  more  instances 
of  people  well  over  ninety  and  concludes  that  all  of  them 
were,  in  their  prime,  more  or  less  athletic — at  least  none 
were  weaklings.  He  thinks  the  longest-lived  people  are 
average  men  and  women  who  have  a  good  hygienic 
sense.  None  were  intemperate,  few  were  highly  edu- 
cated, and  most  were  inured  to  hardships  and  even 
drudgery  in  youth,  so  that  the  study  of  all  their  lives 
practically  tells  the  same  story  of  simple  life  in  the  free 
air,  with  enough  but  not  too  much  work  and  with  exemp- 
tion, for  the  most  part,  from  worry. 

It  would  be  interesting  to  know  if  a  more  critical 
study  of  the  actual  age  of  many  of  these  and  other 
in 


SENESCENCE 

quoted  centenarians  would  substantiate  their  claims. 
No  such  investigation,  however,  has  ever  been  made  into 
the  many  cases  reported  by  this  and  the  preceding 
author. 

I  append  a  few  special  records  that  seem  peculiarly 
challenging.  The  first  is  that  of  James  L.  Smith,7  a 
veteran  of  the  Civil  War.  Twenty  years  ago  he  weighed 
two  hundred  and  twenty  pounds,  was  warned  against 
excitement,  and  his  friends  and  physician  were  horrified 
when  he  proceeded  to  run  his  flesh  off.  It  was  a  great 
effort  for  so  heavy  a  man  but  in  six  months  he  had 
reduced  his  weight  to  one  hundred  and  ninety  and  was 
running  more  than  six  miles  a  day,  his  daily  work  being 
the  directing  of  two  hundred  district  messengers.  Yield- 
ing to  the  protests  of  his  friends  he  ceased  his  exercise, 
because  he  was  told  that  he  could  not  punish  his  heart 
and  lungs  thus  and  not  suffer  and  was  liable  to  drop 
dead.  Growing  fleshy  again,  with  increased  shortness 
of  breath,  he  began  to  run  again  daily,  reducing  his 
weight  once  more  to  a  hundred  and  sixty  and  develop- 
ing a  physique  and  complexion  like  that  of  a  far  younger 
man.  At  seventy  he  ran  never  less  than  five  and  often 
ten  miles  a  day,  holding  that  senility  is  a  disease  of  the 
mind  and  that  youth  and  its  vigor  can  be  maintained  if 
one  only  believes  in  himself.  He  has  raced  in  many  parts 
of  the  country  and  has  a  standing  offer  to  run  any  ten 
survivors  of  the  Civil  War  in  relays  of  one  to  a  mile, 
he  himself  running  the  whole  ten.  His  offer  used  to 
be  accepted ;  it  is  so  no  longer.  The  day  he  was  seventy 
he  "covered  a  half  mile  faster  than  a  roller-skating 
champion,"  and  at  seventy-three  ran  half  a  mile  in  2 
minutes  and  44  seconds.  On  a  dirt  road  he  has  run  ten 
miles  in  i  hour,  13  minutes,  and  48  seconds,  exactly  the 
same  time  in  which  he  ran  the  same  distance  in  the 

f  "A  Physical  Marvel  at  Seventy-three,"  Amer.  Mag.,  Dec.,  1917. 
112 


LITERATURE  BY  AND  ON  THE  AGED 

Grand  Army  marathon  at  Los  Angeles  six  years  before, 
and  says  that  he  finished  in  fine  condition. 

Still  more  interesting,  although  perhaps  not  more 
authentic,  is  the  autobiographic  record  of  Sanford 
Bennett.8  At  the  age  of  fifty  he  was  broken  in  health 
and  had  to  give  up  his  position  because  of  a  feeble  heart 
and  dyspeptic  stomach.  After  trying  various  cures  he, 
like  Smith,  developed  one  of  his  own,  consisting  chiefly 
of  very  manifold  exercises  taken,  for  the  most  part,  in 
a  recumbent  position  to  lessen  the  arterial  strain  upon 
his  weak  heart,  and  with  little  and  finally  no  apparatus. 
By  persistent  adherence  to  this  regimen  the  circulatory 
and  digestive  functions  were  slowly  recuperated  and  his 
muscles  underwent  remarkable  development  in  bulk  and 
power.  Many  photographs  of  himself,  with  only  a 
breech-waist,  show  him  to  have  acquired  a  symmetry 
and  fulness  of  physical  development  of  which  any  young 
athlete  might  well  be  proud.  Under  self-massage 
wrinkles  of  face  and  neck  disappeared,  the  growth  of  the 
hair  on  his  head  was  somewhat  increased,  and  its  gray- 
ness  was  more  or  less  modified.  His  spirits  and  the 
courage  with  which  he  faced  life  and  reentered  busi- 
ness showed  a  rejuvenation  of  mind  and  feelings  no  less 
remarkable  than  that  of  the  body.  By  more  or  less 
systematic  methods  he  strengthened  his  eyes ;  improved 
the  condition  of  his  liver  and  kidneys;  freshened  the 
skin;  greatly  bettered  the  varicosities  (photographed) 
of  the  veins  of  his  legs;  and  materially  improved  the 
action  of  his  heart,  all  the  while  recognizing  the  in- 
fluences of  the  unconscious  mind  upon  his  physical  con- 
dition. He  has  entirely  overcome  his  tendency  to 
adiposity,  strengthened  his  voice,  increased  the  girth  of 
his  chest  and  his  respiratory  capacity,  etc. 

It  is  impossible  to  con  this  book  and  its  untouched 

*Old  Age:  Its  Cause  and  Preservation,  The  story  of  an  old  body  and 
face  made  young,  New  York,  1912,  309  p. 


SENESCENCE 

photographs  without  the  conviction,  which  has  been 
strengthened  by  my  own  correspondence  with  the 
author,  that  he  has  undergone  a  remarkable  physical 
transformation.  We  have  already  enough  such  in- 
stances to  suggest  that  senescence  normally  releases  in 
healthy  natures  new  motivations  for  the  conservation  of 
health  and  that  if  these  are  given  their  due  expression 
and  if  all  aging  men  and  women  came  to  realize  that 
as  the  decline  of  life  sets  in  they  must  be,  more  and 
more,  not  only  their  own  hygienists  but  their  own  physi- 
cians, far  more  might  be  accomplished  in  many  if  not 
most  cases  than  the  world  at  present  suspects. 

This  suggests  the  lesson  that  Charles  Francis  9  has 
drawn  from  his  life,  namely,  that  exercise  is  the  chief 
cause  of  his  vigor  at  seventy.  His  life  in  connection 
with  his  vocation  as  a  printer  has  been  extremely  active 
and  arduous  and  he  ascribes  his  present  condition  to 
athletics  and  his  exceptional  fondness  for  dancing.  He 
insists  that  next  to  this  comes  the  avoidance  of  worry 
and  thinks  that  every  normal  old  man  develops  a  more 
or  less  full  creed  of  hygienic  Do's  and  Don'ts.  Charles 
Cliff  thinks  the  way  to  eighty  is  to  work  hard  in  youth 
and  then  gradually  take  it  easy. 

Many  modern  writers,  like  Cicero's  Cato,  ascribe 
great  efficacy  to  the  accumulated  examples  of  old  men 
who  have  achieved  exceptional  success  late  in  life,  not 
only  in  business,  arts,  and  letters  but  in  the  greatest 
art  of  all,  that  of  conserving  health  and  youth.  We 
can  easily  conceive  of  a  new  temple  of  fame  to  immor- 
talize those  who  have  mastered  the  art  of  deferring 
senility  and  death. 

Captain  G.  E.  D.  Diamond  10  claimed  to  be  103  and 
in  his  book  tells  us  how  he  lived — no  sweets,  meats, 

•"Young  at  Seventy,"  Am.  Rev.  of  Revs.,  vol.  57,  p.  415. 
"  The  Secret  of  a  Much  Longer  Life  and  More  Pleasure  in  Living  It, 
1906. 

114 


LITERATURE  BY  AND  ON  THE  AGED 

stimulants,  tobacco,  tea,  or  coffee;  had  never  married; 
found  a  panacea  in  olive  oil  taken  internally  and  with 
which  he  once  or  twice  daily  rubbed  his  body;  found 
great  virtue  in  a  cup  of  hot  water  at  breakfast,  grape- 
fruit at  luncheon,  bread  buttered  with  olive  oil;  used 
milk,  and  fish.  He  discants  at  length  upon  the  kinds, 
purity,  and  mode  of  application  of  his  panacea  and  is  a 
polemic  vegetarian. 

The  late  Cardinal  Gibbons X1  thinks  no  one  ever 
died  of  hard  work  and  says  that  he  almost  never  had  an 
idle  moment.  He  forced  himself  to  lie  in  bed  at  least 
eight  hours  and  did  not  worry  if  he  did  not  fall  asleep. 
The  foundations  of  health  are  laid  in  youth  and  he  laid 
the  greatest  stress  upon  plenty  of  regular  exercise  suit- 
able to  one's  age,  moderation  in  eating  and  drinking, 
plenty  of  sleep,  an  occupation,  and  avoidance  of  worry. 

John  Burroughs12  said,  in  1919,  that  he  was  better 
than  thirty  years  before.  Old  age  is  no  bugaboo  but 
is  a  question  of  cutting  out  things,  as  he  did  with  tea, 
coffee,  eggs,  raw  apples,  pastry,  new  bread,  and  alcohol, 
never  having  used  tobacco.  He  was  better  by  leaps 
and  bounds  when  he  omitted  eggs,  a  suggestion  he 
derived  from  Professor  Chittenden.  Malnutrition  is  the 
door  through  which  most  of  our  enemies  enter.  He 
retired  at  nine,  rose  at  six  in  the  winter  and  with  the 
sun  in  summer,  walked  three  hours  in  the  forenoon, 
read  from  seven  to  nine  in  the  evening,  was  much  out- 
of-doors,  and  thought  he  wrote  more  and  better  in  the 
last  three  than  in  any  other  three  years  of  his  life.  And 
yet  he  did  not  come  of  a  long-lived  ancestry. 

Rollo  Ogden 13  thinks  that  in  the  first  call  the  old  man 


u  "Why  I  am  Well  at  Eighty,"  Ladies  Home  /.,  April,  1919. 

M"How  I  Came  to  Be  Doing  More  Work  at  Seventy-Seven  than  at 
Forty-Seven,"  Ibid. 

11  "Viewpoint  of  a  Sexagenarian  Contributor,"  Unpartizan  Rev.,  July, 
1920. 


SENESCENCE 

meets  to  take  himself  out  of  the  way  there  is  generally 
more  pity  than  anger  but  he  is  too  proud  to  accept  pity. 
Nobody  is  so  impetuous  as  an  old  man  in  a  hurry.  Vain 
longings  for  the  sensations  of  youth  make  life  after 
forty  often  a  dangerous  age,  as  physicians  know.  He 
believes  there  are  many  intellectual  hazards  and  thinks 
it  a  delusion  of  the  old  that  the  young  are  different 
from  those  they  knew  in  their  youth.  In  judging  the 
rising  generation  we  oldsters  must,  at  any  rate,  admit 
that  they  did  well  in  the  war.  The  old  must  make  a 
serious  effort  to  penetrate  the  secret  of  youth;  they 
must  put  no  end  of  questions  to  it  even  though  they  are 
not  able  to  find  answers  to  them.  There  must  be  a 
reorganization  of  life  and  a  reorientation ;  and  also, 
what  is  perhaps  often  harder,  a  new  subordination.  The 
old  are,  on  the  whole,  more  curious  about  the  young  than 
afraid  of  them. 

Another  suggestion  arises  from  an  autobiographic 
volume  of  a  retired  clergyman,  which  is  dedicated  to 
his  grandchildren.14  The  book  is  unique  in  that  it  gives 
few  details  of  his  life  but  stresses  certain  strong  impres- 
sions derived  from  early  boyhood,  school  days,  his  first 
experience  with  death,  gropings  to  solve  the  problems 
of  life  and  of  the  choice  of  a  vocation,  etc.  He  confines 
himself,  for  the  most  part,  to  experiences  that  made  the 
deepest  and  most  lasting  impression  upon  him,  the 
mysteries  that  have  haunted  his  soul,  self-criticisms,  the 
rest  and  other  cures  he  has  tried,  friendships  made,  and 
the  great  causes  he  has  espoused.  On  laying  aside  his 
ministerial  duties  he  realized  that  we  must  not  retire 
within  ourselves  but  draw  closer  to  kindred  humanity, 
and  felt  at  liberty  to  enjoy  literature,  art,  nature,  and 
travel,  realizing  that  there  were  many  powers  that  had 
not  been  vented  in  his  vocation.  He  found  himself  tak- 

14  James  M.  Ludlow,  Along  the  Friendly  Way,  Reminiscences  and 
Impressions,  New  York,  1919,  362  p. 

116 


LITERATURE  BY  AND  ON  THE  AGED 

ing  sober  and  broader  second  thoughts  of  even  religion, 
here  discovering  a  new  sense  of  freedom,  as  he  believes 
retired  lawyers  do  in  reflecting  on  the  differences  be- 
tween their  own  sense  of  absolute  right  and  duty  to 
their  clients.  He  was  glad,  he  says,  that  he  could  "now 
break  with  some  of  my  past  notions,  go  squarely  back 
on  some  former,  cocksure  declarations,"  and  he  realized 
that  "I  did  not  know  a  lot  of  things  I  once  thought  I 
knew."  There  is  a  wonderful  exhilaration  in  standing 
at  the  opening  of  views  from  which  one  has  been  pre- 
viously barred  by  constitutional  preoccupation  and  en- 
gagements. He  realizes  that  "courtesy  to  the  cloth 
leads  most  men  to  treat  ministers  as  they  would  treat 
women — the  seamy  side  of  life  is  not  shown  them."  It 
is  easy,  as  one  grows  old,  to  retain  abstract  knowledge 
and  the  ripe  fruits  of  philosophy,  history,  and  even 
science ;  and  age,  too,  has  its  recreations. 

Perhaps  the  chief  suggestion  of  this  book  is  that  every 
intelligent  man,  as  he  reaches  the  stage  of  senescence, 
should  thus  pass  his  life  in  review  and  try  to  draw  its 
lessons,  not  only  for  his  own  greater  mental  poise  and 
unity  but  for  the  benefit  of  his  immediate  descendants, 
for  whom  such  a  record  must  be  invaluable.  Thus  the 
writing  of  an  autobiography  will  sometime  become  a 
fit  hygienic  prescription  for  a  rounded-out  old  age. 

Brander  Matthews  15  says  that  when  a  man  is  in  sight 
of  Pier  No.  70,  as  Mark  Twain  called  it,  he  should  take 
down  sail  and  examine  his  log-book.  He  must  not  feel 
that  young  people  are  wanting  to  brush  him  aside  but 
should  realize  that  he  can  help  them.  He  gives  a  very 
full  account  of  his  own  experiences  as  a  magazine  writer 
and  deplores  the  fact  that  many  of  our  twentieth-cen- 
tury editors  are  newspaper  men,  whereas  formerly  they 
were  literary  men.  The  most  serious  lesson  he  draws 

15  "Confessions  of  a  Septuagenarian  Contributor,"  Unpartisan  Rev., 
July,  1920. 

117 


SENESCENCE 

from  his  own  experience  is  that  young  writers  should 
take  only  subjects  in  which  they  are  profoundly  inter- 
ested and  "not  take  down  the  shutters  before  they  have 
anything  to  put  in  the  shop  windows."  He  rejoices 
that  he  has  never  accepted  a  dictated  subject  but  has 
always  labored  in  fields  attractive  to  him  and  so,  in 
short,  followed  an  inner  calling. 

Ralph  Waldo  Emerson 16  says  the  dim  senses, 
memory,  voice,  etc.,  are  only  masks  that  old  age  wears. 
There  are  young  heads  on  old  shoulders  and  young 
hearts.  The  essence  of  age  is  intellect.  "He  that  can 
discriminate  is  the  father  of  his  father"  and  Merlin 
as  a  baby  found  in  a  basket  by  the  riverside  talks  wisely 
of  all  things.  Is  it  because  we  find  ourselves  reflected 
in  the  eyes  of  young  people  that  we  feel  old?  "The 
surest  poison  is  time."  Age  is  comely  in  coach,  chairs 
of  state,  courts,  and  historical  societies,  but  not  on 
Broadway.  We  do  not  count  a  man's  years  until  he 
has  nothing  else  to  count.  One  says  a  man  is  not  worth 
anything  until  he  is  sixty.  "In  all  governments  the  coun- 
cils of  power  were  held  by  the  old — patricians  or 
patres;  senate  or  senes;  seigneurs  or  seniors;  the 
gerousia,  the  state  of  Sparta,  the  presbytery  of  the 
church,  and  the  like,  are  all  represented  by  old  men." 
Almost  all  good  workers  live  long.  The  blind  old 
Dandolo,  elected  Doge  at  84,  storming  Constantinople 
at  94,  and  afterward  recalled  again  victorious,  was 
elected  at  the  age  of  96  to  the  throne  of  the  empire, 
which  he  declined,  and  died  Doge  at  97.  Newton  made 
important  discoveries  for  every  one  of  his  85  years. 
Washington,  the  perfect  citizen ;  Wellington,  the  perfect 
soldier;  Goethe,  the  all-knowing  poet;  Humboldt,  the 
encyclopedia  of  science — all  were  old. 

"All  men  carry  seeds  of  all  distempers  through  life 

"Old  Age. 

118 


LITERATURE  BY  AND  ON  THE  AGED 

latent  and  die  without  developing  them/'  But  if  we  are 
enfeebled  by  any  cause  some  of  these  sleeping  seeds 
start  and  open.  At  fifty  we  lose  headache  and  with 
every  year  liability  to  certain  forms  of  disease  declines. 
Now  one  success  more  or  less  signifies  nothing  because 
reputation  is  made.  Success  signifies  much  to  a  client 
but  nothing  to  the  old  lawyer.  Again,  another  felicity 
of  old  age  is  that  it  has  found  expression.  Things  that 
seethe  in  us  have  been  born,  so  that  the  throes  and 
tempests  subside.  "One  by  one,  day  by  day,  he  learns 
to  cast  his  wishes  into  facts/'  We  set  our  house  in 
order,  classify,  finish  what  is  begun,  close  up  gaps,  make 
our  wills,  clear  our  titles,  and  reconcile  enemies.  Thus 
there  is  a  proportion  between  the  designs  of  man  and 
the  length  of  his  life.  In  February,  1825,  Emerson 
called  on  John  Adams,  who  was  nearly  90,  just  as  his 
son  had  been  elected  President  at  the  age  of  58,  nearly 
the  same  as  that  of  Washington,  Jefferson,  Madison 
and  Monroe. 

Oliver  Wendell  Holmes  "  discourses  in  his  clever, 
self-conscious,  and  desultory  way  upon  old  age,  con- 
cerning which  he  says  many  smart,  studied,  and  even 
quotable  things  that  add,  however,  no  new  standpoint 
or  idea.  He  personifies  old  age,  for  example,  as  first 
calling  on  the  professor  and  leaving  his  card,  that  is, 
a  mark  between  the  eyebrows;  calling  again  more 
urgently;  and  at  last,  when  he  is  not  let  in,  breaking 
in  at  the  front  door.  He  seems  to  feel  that  death  is  a 
sort  of  disgrace  and  ignominy  and  compares  the  child 
shedding  his  milk  teeth  with  the  old  man  shedding  his 
permanent  ones.  He  would  divide  life  into  fifteen 
stages,  each  of  which  has  its  youth  and  old  age.  As 
we  enter  each  stage  we  do  so  with  the  same  ingenuous 
simplicity.  Nature  gets  us  out  of  youth  into  manhood 

17  The  Autocrat  of  the  Breakfast  Table,  Chap.  VII,  and  also  in  Over 
the  Teacups,  p.  26,  et  seq. 

119 


SENESCENCE 

as  old  sea  captains  used  to  shanghai  sailors.  Habits 
mark  old  age  but  we  should  begin  new  things  and  even 
take  up  new  studies.  He  gives  an  imaginary  newspaper 
report  of  the  address  of  Cato  on  Old  Age,  and  several 
times  lapses  into  poetry.  He  feels  that  he  has  less  time 
for  anything  he  wants  to  do,  realizes  neglected  and  post- 
poned privileges,  tells  of  the  great  charm  he  feels  in 
rowing  on  the  Charles,  and  gives  us  all  the  data  for 
estimating  that  he  is  very  proficient  in  the  exercise.  He 
praises  walking  but  says  saddle  leather  is  preferable, 
though  more  costly.  He  is  very  grateful  that  he  does 
not  need  eyeglasses. 

In  Over  the  Teacups  he  says  that  at  sixty  we  come 
within  the  range  of  the  rifle  pits  and  describes  the  nine 
survivors  of  his  class,  which  graduated  fifty-nine  mem- 
bers. But  here  he  is  most  impressed  with  the  amazing 
progress  he  has  seen — the  friction  match,  the  railroad, 
ocean  steamer,  photography,  spectroscope,  telegraph, 
telephone,  phonograph,  anesthesia,  electric  illumination, 
bicycle,  etc.,  telling  us  that  all  his  boyish  shooting  was 
done  with  a  flintlock  and  all  his  voyaging  on  a  sailing 
packet.  He  has  a  tingling  sense  of  progress  that 
amounts  to  a  kind  of  pity  for  his  own  youth;  and  al- 
though he  cannot  conceive  how  it  is  possible,  he  has  a 
faint  hope  that  progress  may  go  on  at  the  same  rate. 
The  thing  to  be  avoided  is  automatism,  which  is  habit 
gone  to  seed.  We  must  be  sure  and  take  in  sail  betimes. 
In  deciding  between  duties  and  the  desire  to  rest>  many 
have  actually  welcomed  the  decay  of  powers  in  order 
that  they  might  rest.  He  bitterly  condemns  conserva- 
tive religious  dogmas,  which  have  done  so  much  to  dis- 
organize our  thinking  powers,  and  recognizes  the  happy 
tendency  to  soften  and  then  throw  off  creeds  as  one 
grows  old  as  if  in  order  to  return  to  the  source  of  life 
as  ignorant  and  helpless  as  we  came  from  it.  He  ends 
with  a  meager  array  of  facts  to  indicate  that  poets  are 

120 


LITERATURE  BY  AND  ON  THE  AGED 

not  short-lived  and  that  although  their  powers  may 
wane,  some  of  the  best  poems  have  come  from  people 
of  advanced  age. 

The  late  Senator  G.  F.  Hoar 18  thinks  young  people 
contemplate  old  age  and  death  from  a  distance,  as 
Milton's  "Hymn  on  Morning"  was  written  at  midnight. 
"I  would  indite  something  concerning  the  solar  system 
— Betty,  bring  the  candles."  Old  age  is  a  matter  of 
temperament  and  not  of  years.  In  some,  old  age  is 
congenital.  Lowell  says,  "From  the  womb  he  emerged 
gravely,  a  little  old  man."  John  Quincy  Adams  fought 
the  House  of  Representatives  at  83;  Josiah  Quincy 
attacked  the  "Know-Nothings"  at  85 — said  the  bats 
were  leading  the  eagles.  He  broke  his  hip  at  92  and 
when  Dr.  Ellis  called,  he  was  so  charmed  that  he  for- 
got to  ask  him  how  he  was  and  went  back  to  do  so. 
Quincy  said,  "Damn  the  leg."  Gladstone,  aged  83,  faced 
a  hostile  government,  House  of  Lords,  press,  aristoc- 
racy, university,  and  perhaps  a  hostile  queen,  and  said, 
"I  represent  the  youth  and  hope  of  England.  The  solu- 
tion of  these  questions  of  the  future  belongs  aright  to 
us  who  are  of  the  future  and  not  to  you  who  are  of  the 
past."  There  are  certain  functions  especially  assigned 
to  age,  for  example,  the  magistrate  passes  upon  things 
after  the  controversy  is  over.  Senators  by  law  must 
be  at  least  thirty  but  the  average  age  of  them  is  nearly 
sixty.  Methuselah's  days  must  have  been  stupid.  Age 
should  cultivate  unripe  fruit.  The  greatest  penalty  of 
growing  old  is  losing  the  friends  of  youth,  dying  in  the 
death  of  others.  But  a  large  capacity  for  friendship 
atones.  General  Sherman's  friendship  was  like  being 
admitted  to  an  order  of  nobility  or  knighted.  His  circle 
of  friends  grew  throughout  the  country  although  no 
one  was  more  choice  in  his  selection  or  more  outspoken 

18  Old  Age  and  Immortality,  1893. 

121 


SENESCENCE 

in  his  opinions.  Of  old,  age  was  marked  by  splendor 
in  dress  and  punctilious  stateliness  in  manner,  and  art 
often  thus  represents  it. 

Each  generation,  as  it  passes,  gets  from  its  successor 
much  more  criticism  than  sympathy;  the  heir  is  not  on 
good  terms  with  the  king.  "Crabbed  age  and  youth 
cannot  live  together."  No  English  monarch  ever  built 
a  tomb  for  his  predecessor.  We  should  thank  God  that 
Abraham,  Isaac,  and  David  are  well  dead. 

It  is  young  men  who  deal  most  courageously  with  the 
doctrine  of  immortality;  old  men  have  made  no  contri- 
bution to  it  They  are  silent  or  do  not  wish  to  be  sus- 
pected of  cant  or  hypocrisy,  or  perhaps  fear  striking 
their  heads  against  a  stone  wall.  If  there  is  no  immor- 
tality it  is  the  great  souls  who  will  be  most  disappointed 
and  the  world  will  be  "only  the  receptacle  of  a  compost 
heap  of  the  carcasses  of  an  extinct  humanity."  A  cruel 
Highland  chief  shut  his  rebellious  nephew  in  a  dungeon, 
fed  him  on  salt  meat,  then  let  down  a  cup  which  on 
opening  contained  no  water,  and  left  him  to  die  of  thirst. 
The  Divine  treats  us  this  way  if  there  is  no  future. 
Old  men  develop  individuality.  They  reason  less  and 
less  about  the  future  and  trust  reason  less.  But  "beside 
the  silent  sea  I  wait  the  muffled  oar,"  assured  that  "no 
harm  from  Him  can  come  to  me  on  ocean  or  on  shore." 

W.  D.  Howells  19  said  at  eighty  that  he  was  less  afraid 
of  dying  than  when  he  was  young.  Virtues  may  become 
faults,  for  example,  thrift  may  make  a  miser,  his  love 
of  gold  being  more  tangible  than  of  greenbacks.  It  is, 
indeed,  a  shame  to  die  rich.  We  are  often  young  in 
spots,  for  example,  on  a  spring  morning.  Slight  acclivi- 
ties seem  to  grow  up  into  hills.  After  too  long  sitting, 
for  example,  in  the  theater,  we  realize  that  we  have 
over-rested.  The  golden  age,  he  thinks,  is  between  fifty 

""Eighty  Years  and  After,"  Harpers,  1919.    p.  21. 
122 


LITERATURE  BY  AND  ON  THE  AGED 

and  sixty.  Those  who  have  made  themselves  wanted 
are  still  so.  Our  utmost  effort  is  less.  We  are  not 
dull,  as  the  young  think  us  because  we  seem  so  to  them. 
A  reader  has  exhausted  most  of  the  best  literature  and 
yet  of  rereading  old  books  and  reading  new  ones  we 
never  tire  and  have  our  favorite  passages.  We  should 
interest  ourselves  in  public  questions.  It  hurts  to  be 
always  told  how  young  we  look.  We  forget  names  we 
were  most  familiar  with  and  recall  them  by  their  uses 
or  perhaps  by  their  foreign  equivalents.  He  thinks  old 
women,  however,  do  not  forget  words.  Tolstoi  said 
that  memory  is  hell  and  a  future  state  that  recalls  all 
would  be  a  bore.  Titian  outlived  99  and  painted  to  the 
end.  His  masterpiece,  the  bronze  doors  of  the  sacristy 
at  St.  Mark's,  was  done  when  he  was  85.  When  tired 
he  withdrew  to  a  dark,  warm  place.  John  Bigelow  in 
the  nineties  gave  a  charming  lecture  on  Dumas.  Versus 
the  solitude  of  old  age,  the  young  do  often  seem  dull. 
We  do  not  help  other  old  men  enough.  Woman's 
sympathy  goes  far  to  bridge  this  interval.  Some  grieve 
that  they  cannot  help  with  their  own  self-support. 
Howells  says  he  is  a  great  dreamer  and  forgets  where 
he  puts  things,  for  example,  his  spectacles. 

H.  D.  Sedgwick 20  thinks  Harvard  seniors  more  dis- 
posed to  answer  questions  than  to  ask  them.  Youth 
may  be  worth  living,  but  is  old  age  so?  Young  men 
know  nothing  of  youth;  they  cannot  realize  it  objec- 
tively, for  they  despise  it  and  want  to  hurry  on.  The 
"kid"  would  be  a  Freshman.  He  feels  at  first  just  out- 
side the  door  of  something  delectable.  The  boy  does 
not  enjoy  himself  so  much  as  the  old  man  looking  on 
"for  such  is  the  kingdom  of  Heaven."  The  young  are 
individualists  absorbed  in  self.  They  form  cliques 
excluding  hoi  polloi,  They  over-praise  their  own 

10  "De  Senectute,"  Atlantic,  1913,  p.  163. 
123 


SENESCENCE 

college,  but  their  ego  is  always  the  center.  It  is  really 
the  spectator  in  the  theater  that  gets  the  most  out  of 
it.  Youth  is  exclusive  in  its  foolish  divisions.  The  old 
do  not  dwell  on  differences  but  common  qualities.  The 
old  man  finds  no  solace  in  isolation  but  in  community. 
He  loves  humanity;  seeks  a  refuge  for  self;  passes 
lightly  over  differences  of  speech,  clothes,  and  customs. 
Perhaps  this  is  due  to  the  slow  approach  of  night,  which 
makes  all  draw  together  for  the  warmth  of  friendship. 
The  old  man  snuggles  to  the  breast  of  humanity  and 
is  less  prone  to  lose  himself  in  random  interests.  If  he 
cannot  get  about  in  space,  he  turns  to  the  essential  truth 
of  the  universe.  The  gods  do  not  know  the  words 
"great"  or  "small."  The  old  see  wonders'  in  the  iris. 
Youth  seeks  the  top  of  the  mountains  because  it  cannot 
see  the  wonders  in  what  is  common  and  what  is  right 
about.  The  old  are  more  religious  and  less  subject  to 
emotional  crises.  They  do  not  see  God  in  the  fire  or 
smoke  but  can  see  Him  in  the  commonplace,  and  find 
beauty  in  cloud,  flower,  and  tree ;  while  youth  is  too  busy 
with  its  own  emotions  and  their  tyranny.  The  records  of 
earth  tell  of  bestial  cruelty.  The  globe  is  cooling  and 
youth  resists  it  like  Prometheus.  To  youth  the  energy 
of  the  world  is  inexplicable.  All  is  the  product  of  brute 
force.  Out  of  the  dust  came  the  eye  and  the  brain  and 
the  mind,  and  all  the  turmoil  is  like  labor-pangs  to  pro- 
duce love,  beauty,  and  happiness.  Everything  is  full  of 
aspiration.  Out  of  the  universe  will  come  God,  who 
is  slowly  evolving  from  the  material  without.  If  the 
matter  of  life  has  produced  the  passions  of  humanity, 
it  is  charged  with  potential  divinity. 

Walt  Mason  21  says  that  until  his  system  falls  apart  he 
will  stay  on  deck,  with  his  coat-tails  in  the  air,  refusing 
to  be  relieved,  even  though  he  may  require  overhauling 

"  "I  Refuse  to  Grow  Old,"  Amer.  Mag.,  Sept.,  1919. 
124 


LITERATURE  BY  AND  ON  THE  AGED 

every  few  days.  When  he  was  young  he  was  careless 
in  dress,  but  as  he  grew  older  he  became  very  fastidious 
and  was  inclined  to  turn  a  new  leaf  in  dress  every  day 
and  give  the  best  imitation  possible  of  a  young  man. 
But  we  who  were  born  during  the  Van  Buren  period 
cannot  look  like  little  Lord  Fauntleroys.  He  studied  old 
men  and  found  that  one  did  not  believe  in  adding  ma- 
chines while  most  hated  innovations  in  general.  An  old 
man  who  criticises  anything  present  is  always  very 
unpopular  and  when  he  praises  it,  the  attitude  of  every- 
one changes  toward  him.  The  young  hate  ancient  his- 
tory and  want  to  lay  it  away  in  moth-balls.  Eternal 
vigilance  is  the  price  of  eternal  youth. 

Edison  at  the  age  of  seventy-two  said  he  worked 
eighteen  hours  a  day  and  that  it  was  hard  for  him  to 
take  a  week-end  off.  When  Colonel  Death  comes  around 
the  corner  and  says  "Time's  up,"  Mason  says  he  wants 
him  to  find  him  in  a  hand-to-hand  conflict  with  his 
trusty  lyre.  Every  town  has  a  coterie  of  "old  boys" 
who  are  against  everything;  they  write  letters  to  the 
press,  etc.  Now,  idleness  is  the  worst  thing  for  an  old 
man  and  for  his  disposition.  If  he  retires  at  50  kindly, 
he  will  grow  impossible  by  70.  The  old  are  always 
blaming  and  brooding  over  the  final  showdown.  It  is 
always  possible  that  the  next  cold  or  bit  of  rheumatism 
may  break  down  the  carburetor,  but  why  worry? 

E.  P.  Powell,22  a  Florida  clergyman,  cannot  conceive 
old  age  for  young  Sidis  and  others  like  him.  Charity 
should  not  help  people  to  get  rid  of  work  but  conceive 
a  haven  of  rest.  A  workman  damns  epitaphs  readable 
a  few  years  hence.  Humanity  must  not  be  loaded  with 
a  mass  of  pensions.  Old  age  must  not  be  a  luxury. 
Good  sleep  should  renew  the  world.  Rev.  Tinker  im- 
proved sweet  corn,  Rev.  Goodrich,  potatoes.  Worry  is 

13  "The  Passing  of  Old  Age,"  Independent,  Jan.,  1914. 
125 


SENESCENCE 

one  road  to  the  cemetery  and  idleness  is  another.  The 
working  problem  is  more  important  than  that  of  diet. 
The  author  writes  his  sermons  lying  on  the  floor  and 
spinning  a  top.  A  Florida  June  morning,  he  says,  is 
far  better  than  a  month  in  Paradise.  He  does  not  care 
for  heaven  because  he  is  more  interested  in  the  divine 
earth.  The  family  should  include  four  generations.  We 
should  all  strive  for  perpetual  youth.  "Few  children 
but  better,"  should  be  our  motto.  Premature  old  age  is 
reprehensible.  The  world  is  full  of  half  dead  men.  We 
shall  never  abolish  death.  Present  society  is  death- 
hastening  and  life-wasting.  Fisher  would  prolong  by 
(i)  eugenics,  (2)  personal  hygiene,  (3)  public,  (4) 
what  might  be  called  domestic  hygiene. 

U.  V.  Wilson  23  says  that  the  seasons  or  nature  were 
never  so  pleasant.  He  has  the  leisure  that  he  toiled  for 
all  his  life.  Every  year  seems  shorter  (being  now  only 
one-seventy-third  of  all)  so  that  he  feels  he  is  approach- 
ing the  infinite  point  of  view.  Religionists  tell  us  that 
it  is  hard  for  the  Lord  to  save  an  old  man  but  now  that 
the  days  and  years  shrink  we  approach  eternity. 
Seventy-three  is  the  age  of  his  physical  being  but  he  is 
really  centuries  older.  His  circle  of  friends  is  narrow 
but  closer.  He  had  a  fad  for  hunting  and  fishing  and 
photography  and  his  sense  of  youth  remains  forever. 
He  dreads  decrepitude  and  helplessness  and  hates  to  see 
his  body  tumble  down,  like  a  man  in  a  dungeon  seeing 
the  world  only  through  a  very  small  window.  Second 
childhood  suggests  that  if  the  eye  fails,  there  are  glori- 
ous things  beyond  it  can  see;  that  if  the  ear  fails,  there 
are  inner  harmonies.  He  feels  like  a  youth  shut  up  in 
an  old  body.  Infirmities  are  forerunners  of  immortal 
health.  So  he  does  not  fear  death  because  it  only  re- 
moves barriers  between  him  and  the  fullness  of  life. 

""At  Seventy-Three  and  Beyond,"  Allan.,  1914,  p.  123. 
126 


LITERATURE  BY  AND  ON  THE  AGED 

D.  G.  Brinton24  says  "that  old  age  is  synonymous 
with  wisdom  is  a  comical  deception  which  the  gray- 
beards  have  palmed  off  on  the  world  because  by  law 
and  custom  they  hold  most  of  the  property  and  want 
most  of  the  power  as  well."  "As  we  grow  old,  we  cease 
to  obey  our  finer  instincts"  (Thoreau).  "The  experience 
of  youth  serves  but  to  lead  old  age  astray,  and  this  is 
nowhere  so  plain  as  when  an  old  man  pretends  a  zest 
for  the  pleasures  of  the  young.  No  fool  like  an  old 
fool."  "Every  age  has  pleasures  sufficient  which  are 
appropriate  to  it,  and  these  alone  should  be  sought 
after."  If  youth  respects  the  laws  of  nature,  old  age 
is  very  tolerable.  It  brings  many  compensations  for 
losses,  and  although  not  likely  to  be  so  happy  as  the 
best  of  middle  life,  it  should  be  and  often  is  superior 
in  this  respect  to  youth.  "Probably  it  would  generally 
be  so  were  we  more  willing  to  learn  the  lessons  appro- 
priate to  it." 

One  writer  says  no  man  can  be  happy  till  he  is  past 
sixty,  and  another,  "He  who  teaches  the  old  is  like 
one  who  writes  on  blotted  paper."  A  long  life  is  the 
desire  of  all,  and  old  age,  which  all  abhor,  is  the  hope 
of  all.  "It  alone  justifies  a  man  to  himself  and  before 
others."  "The  sage  is  he  whose  life  is  a  consistent 
whole  and  who  carries  out  in  his  age  the  plans  which 
he  made  in  youth."  "The  Jews  of  Frankfurt  average 
ten  years  more  of  life  than  the  non-Jewish  citizens  be- 
cause they  avoid  unsanitary  avocations  and  observe 
wiser  rules  of  diet."  At  seventy-five  exposure  to  cold 
is  thirty-two  times  more  dangerous  than  it  is  at  thirty 
years  of  age.  "The  sorrows  of  age  are  usually  the 
returns  of  the  investments  of  youth,  these  proving  of 
that  sort  which  levy  assessments  instead  of  paying 
dividends.  A  short  life  and  a  merry  one  is  the  maxim 

"The  Pursuit  of  Happiness,  1893. 

127 


SENESCENCE 

of  many  a  youngster.  The  hidden  falsehood  at  the  core 
of  this  philosophy  is  the  belief  that  happiness  belongs 
to  youth  alone/'  "The  admiration  of  the  early  periods 
of  life  is  one  of  a  common  class  of  illusions."  "He  who 
would  work  securely  for  his  own  welfare  will  not  be 
led  astray  by  the  belief  that  any  one  period  of  life  con- 
tains solely  or  in  any  large  measure  the  enjoyments  of 
life  as  a  whole.  He  will,  therefore,  not  eat  to-day  the 
bread  of  to-morrow.  He  will  guard  the  fires  of  youth 
that  he  may  not  in  age  have  to  sit  by  the  cold  ashes 
of  exhausted  pleasures."  The  price  of  so  doing  is  pre- 
mature senility,  loss  of  zest  in  life  due  to  the  early 
exhaustion  of  irrational  enjoyments.  "The  only  malady 
which  all  covet  is  the  only  one  which  is  absolutely  fatal, 
old  age."  No  passion  is  so  weak  but  that  a  little  pressed, 
it  will  master  the  fear  of  death.  "He  who  is  haunted 
by  the  dread  of  dying  makes  himself  miserable  for  fear 
he  cannot  make  himself  miserable  longer." 

Few  modern  writers  have  written  more  sagely  on  old 
age  than  N.  S.  Shaler,  late  professor  of  geology  at 
Harvard.25  He  attaches  great  importance  to  the  inter- 
val between  the  end  of  the  reproductive  period  and 
death,  which  in  lower  creatures  is  very  brief  if  it  exists 
at  all.  In  domesticated  animals  there  is  hardly  any 
normal  old  age  and  they  do  not  seem  to  know  a  climac- 
teric. There  is  a  great  variation  among  different  races 
in  this  period  of  senescence,  which  is  so  peculiar  to  man. 
This  interval  is  very  brief  among  savages.  But  with 
the  beginning  of  speech  all  the  relations  of  the  in- 
dividual to  his  group  change.  If  old  animals  live  on, 
they  do  so  to  themselves  and  not  for  the  benefit  of  their 
kind.  But  in  man  the  old  individual  becomes  a  store- 
house of  acquired  or  traditional  knowledge,  and  wisdom 
has,  for  the  first  time,  a  distinct  value  in  organic  associa- 

*  The  Individtial:  A  Study  of  Life  and  Death,  1910,  especially  Chap.  13, 
"The  Period  of  Old  Age." 

128 


LITERATURE  BY  AND  ON  THE  AGED 

tion.  It  was  in  this  way  that  the  reproductive  period 
was  shortened,  or  perhaps  we  had  better  say  that  life 
was  prolonged  beyond  it.  In  civilized  society  the  old 
are  still  members  of  the  species,  not  aliens  or  enemies. 
When  a  people  begins  to  have  a  literature  or  a  religion 
and  a  large  body  of  mores  as  social  inheritance  develops, 
the  value  of  old  age  increases. 

The  old  have  to  maintain  a  more  dignified  demeanor. 
They  are  readapted  and  can  go  on  with  life  as  before, 
especially  as  they  now  have  eyes  and  teeth  preserved. 
The  best  attitude  toward  the  old  is  one  that  assures  a 
broader  view  of  life  and  better  sense  of  values  and 
marks  the  modern  passage  from  the  earlier  division  of 
men  into  ranks  and  occupations,  in  which  women,  youth, 
and  old  men  were  once  separated  from  the  active  and 
militant  class.  Thus  the  position  of  the  aged  is  now 
bettered  by  keeping  in  close  relation  with  their  fellows. 

The  growth  of  wealth  has  helped  democratic  in- 
dividualization  and  thus  helped  old  age.  "The  presence 
of  three  or  four  generations  in  the  social  edifice  gives 
to  it  far  more  value  than  is  afforded  by  one  or  two." 
They  "unite  the  life  of  the  community  and  bridge  the 
gap  between  successive  generations."  "As  the  body  of 
the  tradition  which  makes  the  spirit  of  a  people  becomes 
the  greater,  it  is  the  more  difficult  to  effect  the  transmis- 
sion of  it  from  stage  to  stage  in  the  succession."  Despite 
the  volume  of  printed  matter,  including  history,  there  is 
a  spirit  of  society  that  cannot  be  preserved  in  books. 
Who  can  doubt  that  if  veterans  of  our  Civil  War  had 
been  more  numerous  and  influential,  we  should  have 
plunged  into  the  late  war  with  Spain.  There  would  have 
been  more  men  who  really  remembered  what  war  meant 
and  its  lessons,  for  the  new  generation  lacked  the  true 
sense  of  what  conflict  was  and  went  about  it  light- 
heartedly.  So  the  need  of  strict  military  discipline  gen- 
erally has  to  be  relearned  with  each  war.  The  same  is 
129 


SENESCENCE 

true  of  hygienic  policies  in  the  army.  There  are,  thus, 
many  political,  social,  and  even  business  follies  that 
would  have  been  avoided  had  the  wisdom  and  experience 
that  only  old  age  can  bring  been  more  dominant.  Thus 
we  could  make  our  historic  records  not  only  more  effect- 
ive and  more  complete  in  regard  to  its  matter  but  also 
more  perfect  as  regards  the  lessons  it  conveys.  History 
is  often  written  by  men  who  are  separated  from  the 
times  they  chronicle  and  the  best  way  to  bridge  the  gulf 
is  to  keep  in  touch  as  long  as  possible  with  the  genera- 
tion that  was  making  history. 

But  the  endeavor  to  retain  the  aged  is  not  merely  an 
effort  to  preserve  the  lives  of  the  old  but  part  of  the 
problem  of  avoiding  premature  death  for  everyone. 
Thus  since  man  came  there  seems  to  be  a  sudden  loss 
of  longevity  if  we  measure  it  solely  in  terms  of  the 
period  of  growth.  If  this  really  has  occurred,  it  may  be 
that  the  term  is  less  fixed  than  we  should  expect  it  to 
be  if  the  institution  were  of  more  recent  date. 

Anthony  Trollope 26  tells  us  of  a  small  republic, 
Britannula,  situated  somewhere  in  the  South  Pacific  and 
which  had  freed  itself  from  England,  that  had  been 
induced  by  its  leader,  Mr.  Neverbend,  who  was  deeply 
impressed  with  the  sufferings  and  dangers  of  old  age, 
to  pass  a  law  that  at  a  fixed  period,  which  after  much 
discussion  was  fixed  at  67^2  years  of  age,  everyone  in 
the  colony  should  be  taken  with  great  honor  to  a  college 
beautifully  situated  five  miles  from  the  capital  city  and 
there  spend  a  final  year,  at  the  end  of  which  he  was 
to  suffer  euthanasia  at  the  hand  of  the  chief  by  being 
placed  under  an  opiate  and  bled  to  death.  Details  are 
given  of  the  many  discussions  that  led  up  to  this  legis- 
lation, with  the  justifications  for  it  and  descriptions  of 
the  college.  When  the  law  was  passed,  there  was  no 

"  The  Fixed  Period,  New  York,  1881. 
130 


LITERATURE  BY  AND  ON  THE  AGED 

one  in  the  community  of  great  age.  Deposition  or  rele- 
gation to  the  college  was  to  be  a  matter  of  much  pomp 
and  dignity,  with  bells,  banquets,  and  processions,  and 
life  within  the  walls  was  to  be  made  attractive  by  every 
means. 

The  first  to  reach  the  required  age,  Crasweller,  ten 
years  the  senior  of  the  founder,  was  a  man  of  immense 
vitality  and  wealth,  the  most  efficient  proprietor  of  a 
very  large  estate,  and  when  the  day  of  his  deposition 
drew  near  he  dismayed  the  founder  by  insisting  that  he 
was  a  year  younger,  although  all  knew  his  age,  which 
was  to  be  tatooed  upon  the  skin  of  everyone.  Mean- 
while, an  interesting  love  episode  is  described  between 
his  daughter  and  the  son  of  the  founder.  There  was 
much  bitterness  and  recrimination  and  it  is  realized  that 
it  will  never  do  to  compel  the  withdrawal  by  force  of 
the  first  victim,  who  was  to  set  a  high  example  to  all 
others ;  and  so  finally  the  year  falsely  claimed  is  allowed 
to  pass  and  then  Crasweller  is  taken  in  state  to  the  col- 
lege itself,  which  another  citizen  was  growing  weary 
of  tending  because  it  was  untenanted.  There  were  many 
criticisms  of  its  new  and  unfinished  state  and  of  the 
proximity  of  the  cremation  furnaces,  which  were  said 
even  to  smell  of  the  bodies  of  the  animals  that  had  been 
consumed  in  them. 

Meanwhile,  as  the  others  were  drawing  near  to  their 
term,  support  of  the  plan  passed  over  into  covert  and 
then  overt  opposition,  and  just  as  the  first  victim  with 
his  escort  entered,  an  English  man-of-war  appeared — 
in  response,  it  afterwards  became  known,  to  a  petition 
of  the  citizens  to  stop  such  a  proceeding,  which  thus 
cost  the  colony  its  independence.  Thus  Crasweller  was 
freed  and  Neverbend,  the  founder,  retired  to  England, 
where  his  musings  at  last  convinced  him  that  the  world 
was  not  yet  quite  ready  for  his  great  reform.  It  might 
work  if  and  when  men  were  philosophers  but  it  would 


SENESCENCE 

doubtless  have  to  be  postponed  at  least  during  the  lives 
of  his  grandchildren,  and  perhaps  indefinitely.  Thus 
the  women,  who  had  always  opposed  it,  and  the  populace, 
who  welcomed  it  when  they  were  young  but  condemned 
it  as  they  grew  old,  had  their  will  and  its  realization 
is  yet  to  come.  The  reasons  that  led  to  the  scheme  were 
that  the  misery,  uselessness,  troublesomeness,  and  often 
obstructiveness  of  old  age  still  remain  and  are  ever  in- 
creasing in  force,  so  that  something  like  this  must  surely 
sometime  be. 

Stephen  Paget "  gives  us  an  excellent  description  of 
what  he  thinks  a  typical  state  of  mind  of  old  age,  but 
which  I  deem  an  excellent  illustration  of  senile  degen- 
eracy. The  old  man,  he  says,  wonders  at  his  own 
existence,  is  bewildered  at  the  feel  of  the  pen  in  his 
hand,  at  the  taste  of  his  food ;  that  he  is  alive  when  so 
many  millions  are  dead  or  unborn;  at  a  funeral  is  fas- 
cinated by  someone's  whisper  or  the  contour  of  a  face 
or  some  other  irrelevancy;  is  smitten  with  momentary 
surprise  that  he  is  or  that  it  is  it;  finds  an  apocalypse 
on  looking  in  the  glass ;  is  oppressed  by  a  sense  of  mys- 
tery that  is  very  far  from  philosophic  contemplation ;  and 
realizes  that  when  others  observe  him  thus,  they  reflect 
that  there  is  no  speculation — "No  speculation  in  those 
eyes  that  thou  dost  glare  wtih";  finds  himself  growing 
out  "of  the  world,  of  life,  of  time" ;  feels  it  not  unreason- 
able to  consider  the  one,  the  all,  the  infinite,  if  his  mind 
drifts  that  way.  His  mind  wanders  while  he  wonders 
whether  heaven  lies  about  him  in  his  second  infancy. 
Perhaps  it  all  brings  the  kind  of  smile  we  call  wistful. 
He  may  go  crazy  over  a  human  eyebrow  or  a  breath  of 
air;  common  things  seem  novel;  the  dull  things  fas- 
cinate. One  enjoys  a  vagabond  ease  on  the  street;  is 
irked  at  fine  manners ;  is  fond  of  news.  The  old  prob- 

17  The  Man  in  the  Street,  1907,  405  p. 
132 


LITERATURE  BY  AND  ON  THE  AGED 

lems  of  politics  and  religion  lose  their  charm  and  in 
place  of  pure  art  we  turn  to  that  of  the  street.  He  says 
we  old  are  thus  a  sentimental  lot  and  for  the  sake  of 
economy  live  on  our  emotions,  which  cost  nothing.  This 
point  of  view  he  deems  more  or  less  philosophic,  etc. 

This  state  of  mind  the  psychologist  would  call  dis- 
sociative, if  not  dissolutive.  It  is  the  dementia  praecox 
of  old  age  and  can  mean  nothing  but  disintegration  and 
befuddlement.  True,  childhood  is  often  lost  in  wonder 
at  items  of  experience  that  later  are  synthesized  into 
wholes  and  become  commonplaces.  But  this  goes  with 
a  keen  rapport  with  the  environment,  which  the  senses 
are  'developing,  while  this  author's  musings  reveal  a 
falsetto  last  look  before  we  are  melted  or  diffused  into 
the  cosmos.  Such  reveries  are  letting  go,  not  taking 
hold  of  life.  They  are  the  decadence  of  the  philosophic 
spirit  and  belie  the  normal  tendency  of  old  age,  which 
is  to  knit  up  experiences  into  synthetic  wholes,  to  draw 
the  moral  of  life,  and  to  give  integrity  to  the  soul. 

Thus  Mr.  Paget  seems  to  be  the  victim  of  a  kind  of 
senile  Narcissism,  revering  its  chief  traits  in  his  symp- 
toms, yielding  himself  with  a  kind  of  masochistic 
pleasure  to  any  chance  impressions  that  present  them- 
selves. He  has  ceased  to  strive  and  to  will,  and  there 
is  no  justification  of  his  point  of  view,  that  his  state 
is  akin  to  that  of  certain  transcendentalists  who  have 
fallen  into  deep  puzzlements  over  what  Bronson  Alcott 
called  "the  whichness  of  the  what." 

Old  age  is  neither  helped  nor  understood  by  the  cheap 
and  chipper  paradoxes  about  it  of  those  who  tell  the  old 
that  they  are  not  so  save  in  years  and  that  these  do  not 
count,  or  who  affect  to  marvel  at  the  passion  to  look  and 
seem  young.  One  writer28  even  tells  us  that  the  old 
are  beautiful  and  thinks  it  is  a  perverse  precept  of  social 

"Richard  le  Gallienne,  "Not  Growing  Old,"  Harper's,  1921. 
133 


SENESCENCE 

condition  to  think  of  chronological  age  at  all.  "We 
should  say  eighty  years  young;"  "properly  speaking 
there  is  no  old  age,"  etc.  All  this  is  really  the  state  of 
mind  of  a  mental  healer  who  does  not  wish  old  age, 
disease,  or  death,  and  so  denies  their  existence  and  turns 
his  back  upon  reality.  It  is  the  state  of  mind  mythically 
ascribed  to  an  ostrich,  although  the  best  observers  deny 
that  it  ever  buries  its  head  in  the  sand  from  fear  of 
danger.  Such  cajolery  of  the  old  is  like  baby-talk  to 
children,  which  only  infantilism  or  advanced  second 
childhood  relishes.  It  suggests  infirmary  wards  and  is 
itself  a  product  of  the  type  of  psychic  invalidism  and 
valetudinarianism  that  is  interesting  to  the  psychologist 
because  the  appetite  for  it  suggests  the  dreamy  state  of 
mind  in  which  delusions  become  factual  if  they  embody 
our  desires.  The  old  should  be  beyond  attitudinizing 
or  affecting  a  youth  that  is  gone,  for  this  is  to  live  a  lie, 
which  is  dangerous  not  only  to  their  serenity,  for  old 
age  should  be  the  age  of  truth,  but  to  health  and  even 
life. 

G.  S.  Street 29  refutes  the  statement  that  of  late,  espe- 
cially since  the  war,  there  is  a  great  and  growing  gap 
between  the  young  and  the  old,  who  speak  a  different 
language  mutually  unintelligible;  that  the  old  can  no 
longer  understand  the  young ;  etc.  This  has  found  fre- 
quent expression  in  recent  literature.  The  rising  gen- 
eration is  said  to  have  its  own  interests,  ideas,  and  even 
language,  to  have  broken  away  from  the  old,  and  even 
to  have  developed  a  new  poetry  and  art.  A  generation 
ago  there  was  such  a  gap.  The  grown-ups  were  Olym- 
pians and  there  was  little  attempt  of  either  young  or 
old  to  understand  each  other.  There  was  little  friend- 
ship between  dons  and  students  but  we  have  now  a 
popular  cult  not  only  of  childhood  but  of  adolescence. 

""Young  and  Old,"  Nineteenth  Century,  June,  1920. 
134 


LITERATURE  BY  AND  ON  THE  AGED 

It  is  said  that  psychoanalysis  is  becoming  a  cult  of  the 
young  generation  but  Freud  himself  was  not  born 
yesterday.  A  very  few  soldiers  have  complained  bit- 
terly of  the  selfishness  and  stupidity  of  their  elders  who 
sent  them  into  the  trenches,  safely  staying  at  home 
themselves.  There  are,  of  course,  aging  politicians  and 
diplomats  who  are  little  in  touch  with  the  future  as 
represented  by  the  sentiments  and  aspirations  of  the 
young. 

But,  on  the  whole,  the  war  has  brought  old  and  young 
nearer  together.  The  old  have  given  up  their  foolish 
airs  of  superiority  and  the  young  have  been  matured 
by  their  experience.  To  be  sure,  these  oldsters  often 
criticise  the  young  generation,  that  it  is  aggressive  and 
free  of  speech  or  conduct;  and  there  are  young  people 
who,  under  the  illusion  of  new  ideas,  are  aggressive. 
But  such  a  gulf  as  has  existed  between  the  old  and  the 
young  has  always  been  mainly  the  fault  of  the  old,  and 
the  qualities  of  the  young  give  them  less  excuse  for 
this  attitude  than  they  ever  had  before.  Perhaps  the 
world  is  a  little  too  much  in  the  hands  of  people  who 
are  a  little  too  old,  but  this  is  being  rapidly  remedied. 

C.  W.  Saleeby,  M.D., 30  says  that  young  children  never 
worry  and  youth  does  so  almost  entirely  for  the  future, 
while  the  worries  of  old  age  are  chiefly  retrospective 
and  may  take  the  form  of  regrets.  If  young  people 
feel  these,  it  is  only  for  a  brief  space,  for  they  are 
resilient  and  soon  react.  In  middle  life  the  struggle  for 
existence  is  keener  and  the  "might-have-beens"  cannot 
always  be  dismissed,  although  those  in  good  health  can 
usually  soon  surmount  them.  But  this  is  more  difficult 
in  old  age  unless,  indeed,  it  is  "a  lusty  winter,  frosty 
but  kindly."  Wordsworth  describes  old  age  as  it  should 
be  in  this  respect  in  "The  Happy  Warrior"  : 

"  Worry  and  Old  Age,  1909,  Chap.  14. 
135 


SENESCENCE 

Who  not  content  that  former  worth  stand  fast 

Looks  forward  persevering  to  the  last, 

From  well  to  better  daily  self-surpassed. 

Who,  whether  praise  of  him  must  walk  the  earth 

Forever  and  to  noble  deeds  give  birth 

Or  he  must  fail,  to  sleep  without  his  fame 

And  leave  a  dead,  unprofitable  name — 

Finds  comfort  in  himself  and  in  his  cause 

And  while  the  mortal  mist  is  gathering,  draws 

His  breath  of  confidence  in  heaven's  applause. 

This  is  the  Happy  Warrior,  this  is  he 

That  every  man  in  arms  should  wish  to  be 


A  being  breathing  thoughtful  breath 
A  traveler  between  life  and  death, 
The  reason  firm,  the  temperate  will, 
Endurance,  forethought,  strength,  and  skill. 

There  is  a  vast  difference  between  old  age  as  com- 
monly seen  and  as  it  should  be.  The  average  type 
of  humanity  is  undergoing  a  change.  Civilization  means 
city-fication  and  this  involves  a  state  of  mind  very  dif- 
ferent from  that  of  the  rustic.  Worry  has  become  the 
disease  of  the  age  as  it  was  not  formerly  when  man's 
vegetative  nature  was  stronger.  It  is  a  maladie  des 
beaux  esprits.  We  are  no  longer  content  to  eat,  sleep, 
and  sit  in  the  sun.  The  old  always  and  greatly  need 
grandchildren  and  it  was  never  so  hard  to  provide  occu- 
pation for  them,  for  their  temptation  now  is  to  become 
self-centered,  which  is  perhaps  most  common  in  women. 
It  takes  a  different  form  in  men  superannuated  by  some 
automatic  rule.  Pitiful  is  the  state  of  those  who  with- 
draw from  occupations  that  have  required  and  developed 
great  mental  activity. 

The  young,  on  the  other  hand,  are  less  tolerant  than 
formerly  of  the  foibles  and  frailties  of  age.  We  live 
at  such  a  high  speed  that  it  seems  slow,  if  not  stupid, 
and  lack  of  sympathy  adds  to  its  burdens.  The  very 

136 


LITERATURE  BY  AND  ON  THE  AGED 

idea  of  the  family  is  declining  and  there  is  little  left 
of  the  old  sentiment  for  the  patriarch,  so  that  "the  faster 
we  move,  the  wider  must  become  the  gap  between  the 
young  and  those  who,  like  the  aged,  have  ceased  to 
move."  Indeed,  old  age  "is  probably  less  tolerated  and 
less  tolerable  to-day  than  ever  in  the  past,"  for  the  old 
were  never  so  out  of  it.  It  might  be  expected,  as  death 
draws  near,  that  religious  anxieties  would  increase,  but 
the  contrary  is  true.  Youth  was  never  so  unable  to 
apply  the  principle  Tout  comprendre  c'est  tout  par- 
donner  or  to  make  allowances.  So  it  is  the  young  who 
worry  most  about  religious  matters.  "Absence  of  occu- 
pation is  not  rest.  The  mind  that's  vacant  is  a  mind 
distrest" 

If  the  man  who  has  lived  solely  for  sport  is  ill 
prepared  to  meet  old  age,  he  who  has  lived  solely  for 
business  is  still  less  so.  He  has  had  no  time  to  cultivate 
his  more  human  tastes  but  has  developed  his  poten- 
tialities in  only  one  direction  and  when  superannuation 
comes  his  soul  is  bankrupt.  He  generally  now  has  money 
as  well  as  time  to  spend  and  so  devotes  himself  to  in- 
creasing his  material  comforts  in  a  way  that  beckons 
death,  because  high  living  is  no  substitute  for  high 
thinking.  He  should  discover  the  least  atrophied  of  his 
powers  and  devote  himself  to  their  eleventh-hour 
development.  The  man  of  the  modern  nervous  type 
should  lay  up  treasure  that  age  cannot  corrupt.  Herbert 
Spencer  said  the  purpose  of  education  was  to  prepare 
for  complete  living. 

One  of  the  most  beautiful  and  normal  attributes  of 
old  age  is  interest  in  the  young,  without  which  age  is 
lonely  and  life  becomes,  as  the  preacher  said,  "vanity 
of  vanities."  "If  old  people  are  confined  to  the  company 
of  other  old  people,  they  hasten  each  other's  downward 
course."  There  was  "even  a  certain  psychological  truth 
symbolized  in  the  old  idea  that  the  company  of  a  young 

137 


SENESCENCE 

girl  was  the  best  means  for  the  rejuvenescence  of  an 
old  man."  "Never  was  the  tendency  to  abandon  old 
age  to  its  own  devices  so  strong  as  it  is  to-day."  Spencer 
thought  the  care  of  the  aged  by  their  dependents  was 
the  fit  complement  for  the  care  that  in  earlier  years  had 
been  devoted  to  them  and  regarded  the  imperfection  of 
this  return  the  great  defect  of  our  practical  morals. 
Indeed,  the  author  doubts  "whether  the  aged  were  ever 
so  much  to  be  pitied  as  they  are  to-day."  The  psycho- 
logical needs  of  old  age  are  greater  than  ever. 

In  his  Health,  Strength,  and  Happiness*1  he  gives  an 
earnest,  practical  caution  for  all,  but  especially  for  the 
aged,  to  eat  less;  and  particularly  so  in  warm  weather. 
"We  dig  our  graves  with  our  teeth."  Fat  is  hardly  a 
part  of  the  body  at  all.  Flesh  is  really  muscle,  so  that 
the  fat  man  should  be  said  to  be  losing  flesh.  "The 
whole  secret  of  prolonging  one's  life  consists  in  doing 
nothing  to  shorten  it."  The  writer  profoundly  believes 
in  government  by  the  elderly  in  years  and  thinks  that 
the  really  greatest  works  in  many  of  the  most  difficult 
fields  have  been  done  by  them.  He  stresses  the  fact  that 
there  is  a  certain  kind  of  wisdom  that  nothing  but  age 
can  bring.  He  sees  the  chief  cause  of  senile  degenera- 
tion in  the  hardening  of  the  arteries,  due  to  the  necessity 
of  disposing  of  superfluous  fat.  A  man  is  really  as  old 
as  his  mind  and  he  doubts  whether  we  are  producing 
more  really  living  elderly  men  and  women  than  did  the 
ancient  worl^j.  He  is  bitter  in  his  condemnation  of  the 
common  phrase,  "Too  old  at  forty." 

Bernard  Shaw  82  thinks  mankind  is  headed  straight 
for  the  City  of  Destruction 'and  can  be  saved  not  by 
eugenics  or  by  a  new  and  better  education,  as  H.  G. 
Wells  opines,  but  by  prolonging  human  life  to  circa 

"London,  1908. 

"Back  to  Methuselah:  A  Metabiological  Pentateuch,  New  York,  1921, 
400  p. 

138 


LITERATURE  BY  AND  ON  THE  AGED 

three  hundred  years.  If  the  length  of  life  were  reduced 
to  one-half  or  one-quarter  of  what  it  now  is  we  may 
assume  that  our  culture  and  institutions  would  decline 
because  children  could  not  direct  them.  It  is  exactly 
the  equivalent  of  this  that  has  actually  happened,  only 
instead  of  life  being  shortened  to  half  or  a  quarter  of 
its  span  the  problems  of  life  have  doubled  or  quadrupled 
in  magnitude  and  difficulty  so  that  present-day  man  is 
not  grown  up  to  them.  Trained  only  to  run  a  motor 
truck,  he  is  now  since  the  war  called  on  to  be  an  air 
pilot,  and  this  requires  a  long  and  arduous  training  with 
a  great  deal  of  preliminary  selection  or  weeding  out. 
Thus  man  must  now  simply  either  live  a  great  deal 
longer  or  the  race  will  go  under. 

This  can  be  done  and  Shaw  tells  us  how.  It  is  simply 
by  wishing  and  willing  it  intensely  enough  and  for  gen- 
erations. Lamarck,  the  first  creative  evolutionist,  de- 
voted his  life  to  the  "fundamental  proposition  that  living 
organisms  changed  because  they  wanted  to."  They 
wanted  to  see  and  so  evolved  eyes;  to  move  about  and 
so  grew  organs  of  locomotion;  the  forbears  of  the 
giraffe  wanted  to  browse  on  taller  and  taller  tree-tops 
and  so  grew  long  necks,  etc.  All  this  was  done  by  the 
same  phyletic  impulsion  as  now  impels  us  to  talk,  swim, 
skate,  ride  a  wheel,  etc.  We  strive  at  it  long  and  per- 
sistently and  by  and  by,  presto !  the  power  comes  from 
within  because  we  will  it,  and  it  is  never  lost.  In  this 
same  way  man  can  and  will  acquire  the  power  of  living 
several  times  longer  than  he  does  now.  As  he  does  so 
he  will  put  away  his  present  occupations  and  interests, 
sports,  amusements,  party  politics,  religious  dogmas, 
ceremonies,  and  indeed  most  of  the  things  that  now  in- 
terest the  populace,  and  come  out  into  a  new  adulthood 
with  vastly  enhanced  powers  and  a  far  wider  horizon. 
Those  who  do  this  first  will  become  pilots  of  mankind, 
which  at  present  seems  doomed  for  want  of  more  wis- 

139 


SENESCENCE 

dom  and  better  leaders.  Darwin  and  especially  the  Neo- 
Darwinians  who  believe  in  "circumstantial  evolution" 
launched  the  world  on  a  career  of  egoism  in  morals  and 
mechanism  in  life  that  has  brought  it  to  its  present  pass 
and  made  it  forget  that  all  true  evolution  is  from  within, 
vitalistic,  and  voluntaristic. 

Shaw's  drama  opens  in  Eden,  where  Adam,  oppressed 
by  the  conviction  that  he  must  live  forever,  first  faces 
the  fact  of  death  in  finding  the  putrefying  body  of  a 
fawn.  The  gorgeously  hooded  serpent  explains  to  Eve 
how  she  is  to  renew  life  by  offspring  from  her  body,  and 
because  of  this  she  and  Adam  are  assured  that  they  need 
live  only  a  thousand  years.  In  the  next  scene  Cain  the 
Killer  justifies  his  vocation. 

In  the  second  part,  which  opens  in  our  day,  two 
brothers,  one  a  liberalized  clerical  and  the  other  a 
biologist,  agree  that  life  is  too  short  to  be  taken  seriously 
and  that  neither  of  them  is  within  a  hundred  and  fifty 
years  of  the  experience  and  wisdom  they  have  been 
sincerely  pretending  to.  To  be  a  good  clergyman  or 
biologist  requires  several  centuries.  Man  now  dies  be- 
fore he  knows  what  life  or  what  science  is.  Indeed, 
life  is  now  so  short  that  it  is  hardly  worth  while  to  do 
anything  well.  Then  a  past  and  present  prime  minister, 
obviously  caricatures  of  the  two  most  famous  men  who 
have  lately  filled  that  position  in  England,  enter  and  try 
— each  according  to  his  method  and  hobbies — to  interest 
the  brothers  in  one  popular  cause  after  another,  but  in 
vain ;  and  are  finally  plainly  told  that  they  have  not  lived 
long  enough  to  outgrow  personal  and  local  prejudices 
or  to  see  things  in  their  true  perspective.  The  states- 
men, failing  to  find  campaign  material  serviceable  for 
the  next  election  in  this  new  Gospel  of  the  Brothers 
Barnabas,  then  ask  for  a  prescription  that  will  prolong 
their  lives  and,  failing  to  obtain  either,  cease  to  be  in- 
terested. It  does  not  seem  practical  to  found  a  Lon- 

140 


LITERATURE  BY  AND  ON  THE  AGED 

gevity  Party  and  it  might  be  dangerous  to  let  everyone 
live  as  long  as  he  wanted  to.  The  statesmen  are  finally 
told  that  as  they  are  incompetent  to  do  God's  work 
He  will  produce  some  better  beings  who  can. 

In  Part  III,  A.D.  2170,  The  thing  Happens.  An 
archbishop,  now  283  years  old,  is  convinced  that  "man- 
kind can  live  any  length  of  time  it  knows  to  be  absolutely 
necessary  to  save  civilization  from  extinction."  Such 
lengthening  may  now  happen  to  anyone  and  when  he 
is  convinced  that  he  is  one  of  these  elect  everything 
changes.  A  well  preserved  lady  who  appeared  in  a 
former  part  as  a  parlormaid  but  who  is  now  224  years 
old  enters  and  discourses  sapiently  on  the  traits  of  the 
short-livers  and  complains  that  there  are  so  few  grown- 
ups. "What  is  wrong  with  us  is  that  we  are  a  non-adult 
race."  Her  own  serious  life  began  at  120. 

In  Part  IV  we  are  transferred  to  the  year  A.D.  3000. 
An  Elderly  Gentleman,  attired  in  very  pronounced 
fashions  that  have  not  changed  from  our  day,  comes 
from  Bagdad,  now  the  British  capital — London  being 
only  a  park  and  cities  being  for  the  most  part  abolished. 
He  is  an  amateur  student  of  history  and  comes  to  re- 
visit the  home  of  his  remote  ancestors  but  finds  it  now 
tenanted  only  by  long-livers  who  regard  him  as  a  child 
and  chaperone  and  instruct  him  as  such.  At  first  he 
loquaciously  vents  his  own  opinions  on  a  great  variety 
of  subjects  with  the  utmost  confidence  but  finally,  under 
the  tutelage  of  a  Primary  and  a  Secondary,  and  at  last 
from  contact  with  an  awful  Tertiary  (for  thus  those 
in  the  first,  second,  and  third  century  of  their  lives  are 
known  and  labeled)  he  loses  confidence,  becomes  more 
and  more  depressed  at  finding  so  many  things  he  can- 
not understand,  and  has  a  serious  attack  of  the  "dis- 
couragement" that  is  generally  the  doom  of  all  short- 
livers  who  visit  these  parts.  In  the  end  the  aged  Briton 
is  so  confounded  by  the  wisdom  that  he  cannot  compre- 

141 


SENESCENCE 

hend  that  life  loses  all  its  attractions  and  he  finally  dies 
of  exhaustion  at  the  feet  of  the  Oracle.  Napoleon  also 
swaggers  and  boasts  upon  the  stage,  but  his  ideals,  too, 
are  shown  to  be  only  characteristic  of  the  short-livers 
and  he  is  completely  subjected. 

Part  V  of  this  Pentateuch  is  dated  A.D.  31,920.  Chil- 
dren are  now  born  from  eggs,  clamoring  to  get  out  when 
about  as  mature  as  our  youth  are  at  seventeen,  so  that 
there  are  no  children  in  our  sense.  They  are  grown-ups, 
according  to  our  standard,  at  three  or  four.  Art  and 
science,  after  incredible  labors,  are  at  last  able  to  pro- 
duce two  homunculi,  a  male  and  a  female.  They  rep- 
resent the  consummation  of  circumstantial  or  mechan- 
ical evolution.  They  appear,  talk,  will,  feel,  apparently 
not  as  the  reflex  mechanisms  and  automata  they  are  but 
as  completely  human.  They  have,  however,  almost  in- 
credible powers  of  destruction  which  they  turn  first 
against  their  own  fabricator.  So  dangerous  are  they 
that  they  have  to  be  destroyed  because  not  truly  human 
since  they  lack  the  creative  urge  from  within. 

This  amazingly  bold  projection  of  Shaw's  imagination 
into  the  void  is  elaborately  wrought  out  and  needs  very 
careful  reading  to  be  rightly  appraised.  Almost  every 
reader  will  agree  that  he  goes  much  too  far  in  dis- 
paraging about  all  that  modern  man  has  done  or  cared 
for  so  far  in  the  world  as  childish  doll-play.  This  is 
its  pessimism.  Its  optimism,  which  lies  in  the  hope  of 
vastly  increased  longevity  and  wisdom,  will  be  thought 
to  compensate,  or  to  fail  to  do  so,  according  to  the  tem- 
perament of  the  reader.  The  new  dispensation,  which 
is  to  come  when  man  has  grown  up,  for  in  the  last  part 
it  is  seen  that  he  may  live  even  700  or  800  years,  will 
be  ushered  in  by  those  individuals  who  are  most  per- 
fectly convinced  of  the  desperate  state  into  which  man 
has  now  fallen  but  nevertheless  profoundly  believe  both 
that  he  is  worth  saving  and  that  he  can  be  saved.  George 

142 


LITERATURE  BY  AND  ON  THE  AGED 

Eliot's  way  of  prolonging  life  by  giving  to  moments  the 
significance  of  days  will  not  do  because  great  events 
often  have  no  power  to  speed  up  but  must  evolve  very 
slowly.  The  best  type  of  old  age  as  we  know  it  is  still 
too  puerile  to  expect  very  much  from. 

Shaw's  conceptions  of  the  old  are  neither  attractive 
nor  constructive  but  priggish  because  presuming  on 
their  years  to  demand  respect  for  a  wisdom  that  is  no- 
where in  evidence.  There  is  almost  no  suggestion  that 
they  have  done  anything  to  improve  the  material  or 
psychic  conditions  of  human  life.  No  great  inventions 
are  suggested  unless  telephonic  communication  by  tun- 
ing forks.  These  Ancients  seem  to  derive  their  greatest 
pleasure  from  disparagement  of  their  own  youth  and, 
what  is  far  worse,  of  youth  in  general.  The  long-livers 
are  cynical,  addicted  to  sneering,  rebuke,  criticise,  and 
do  not  inspire,  construct,  achieve,  or  even  teach ;  in  fact 
they  only  make  the  gestures  and  show  the  affectations 
of  sagehood.  They  are  divided  in  their  counsels  whether 
to  exterminate  the  short-livers  or  to  leave  them  to 
natural  selection.  Thus  they  are  a  class  apart  and  we 
have  almost  no  hint  as  to  the  stages  by  which  they 
evolved.  Now  we  are  told  that  they  are  "elected"  to 
longevity  or  achieve  it  as  "sports,"  while  in  the  Preface 
it  is  insisted  that  it  comes  by  a  long  series  of  persistent 
efforts. 

On  the  whole,  happy  as  was  his  choice  of  scene,  fas- 
cinating as  are  these  almost  actionless  conversations, 
the  whole  thing  is  a  jeu  df esprit,  with  no  message  of 
practical  import  to  our  age  or  to  the  aged  unless  it  be 
to  slightly  encourage  the  hope  in  the  latter  that  by  will- 
ing to  do  so  more  and  more  intensely  they  may  add 
somewhat  to  their  length  of  years.  Shaw's  Ancients 
are  simply  a  board  of  censors  to  carry  out  his  own 
whims  and  who  have  grown  arrogant  as  their  powers 
increased.  Altogether  they  are  so  unlovely  that  the 

143 


SENESCENCE 

reader  would  hesitate  whether  he  would  prefer  to  be  a 
bloodless  Ancient  or  to  take  his  chance  of  being  extermi- 
nated by  them  as  a  short-liver.  The  two  Ancients  in 
the  fifth  book  of  the  Pentateuch,  700  and  800  years  old 
respectively,  are  chilly,  loveless,  almost  clotheless,  sleep- 
less, hairless  creatures,  happy  in  enjoying  a  wisdom  of 
the  nature  of  which  we  are  given  very  few  hints.  They 
teach  that  all  works  of  art  from  rag  dolls  to  statues, 
and  even  to  homunculi,  are  needless,  and  the  intimation 
is  that  they  are  well  on  the  way  to  becoming  independent 
of  the  body,  which  they  have  subjected  and  which  has 
lost  all  its  attractions.  We  are  not  even  told  how  the 
gigantic  eggs  from  which  the  race  is  born  at  adolescence 
are  produced.  The  final  verdict  of  Lilith,  the  androg- 
ynous mother  of  our  first  parents  in  Eden,  is  that  in 
giving  Eve  curiosity,  which  was  still  impelling  the  race 
to  conquer  matter  and  then  resolve  itself  back  into 
bodiless  vortexes  and  energies,  she  had  made  no  mistake 
for  the  Ancients  are  ever  gaining  in  wisdom  to  com- 
prehend the  universe  and,  despite  the  slow  decay  of 
their  bodies,  are  likely  to  attain  the  goal  of  achieving 
real  but  immaterial  truth,  beauty,  and  goodness  all  in 
one,  so  that  she  need  not  exterminate  man  and  produce 
in  his  place  a  new  and  higher  race  of  beings.  Thus 
Shaw's  Ancients  are  the  direct  antithetes  of  Nietzsche's 
supermen. 

The  poets  of  all  times  and  climes  have  had  something 
to  say  of  old  age,  and  vastly  more  of  death.  The  latter 
has  always  been  one  of  the  chief  themes  of  Christian 
hymnology  and  both  its  gruesome  horrors  and  its  conso- 
lations have  found  expression  in  countless  tropes — sleep, 
harvest,  crossing  the  river,  and  many  others  that  are 
fairly  burned  into  the  consciousness  of  all  who  have 
come  into  contact  with  the  church.  Hymns  have  given 
the  Western  world  ideas  of  death  that  the  scientific 
descriptions  of  it  show  to  be  utterly  false  to  fact,  for 

144 


LITERATURE  BY  AND  ON  THE  AGED 

the  dying  almost  never  face  death  consciously,  so  that  its 
terrors  are  generally  quite  unknown  to  those  who  meet 
it;  while  the  cajolements  that  the  Great  Enemy  has 
really  been  conquered  in  his  stronghold  and  the  supreme 
fear  of  the  world  banished,  which,  as  I  have  elsewhere 
shown,33  came  to  its  most  ecstatic  affirmation  at  Pente- 
cost, are  no  less  fallacious.  Thus  along  with  its  anodyne 
Christianity  has  invested  death  with  a  new  horror  of 
hell  unknown  to  the  pagan  world.  Moreover,  it  has 
always  been  taught  as  something  exogenous  or  as  a 
graft  upon  a  more  primitive  stock  and  it  is  the  latter 
that  the  psychologist  chiefly  seeks  to  know.  Thus,  ex- 
cluding the  more  artificial  reactions  that  have  come  to 
it  from  this  source,  I  have  reduced  my  first  numerous 
selections  to  a  very  few  that  express  the  natural  spon- 
taneous repercussion  of  the  three  chief  attitudes  of  mind 
regarding  it. 

The  first  is  the  death  thought  that  always  and  every- 
where tends  to  find  its  first  expression  in  ingenuous 
youth  and  this  has  never  been  more  fully  and  normally 
portrayed  than  in  Bryant's  "Thanatopsis,"  34  which  is 
familiar  even  to  school  children  and  which  was  written 
by  the  author  in  his  ripe  adolescence.  This  might  have 
been  composed  in  ancient  pagan  Hellas  or  even  by  a 
Buddhist  as  well  as  by  a  Christian,  so  generic  and 
germane  is  it  to  human  nature  as  it  evolves.  Tennyson's 
"Crossing  the  Bar,"  35  while  it  shows  vestiges  of  the 
same  youthful  appercus  that  lingered  into  the  author's 
maturer  years,  is  far  more  specific,  more  funereal,  and 
really  the  farewell  address  of  a  dying  soul  to  survivors. 
The  euthanasia  motive  is  far  less  pronounced  in  it. 

The  second  attitude  is  illustrated  by  Matthew  Arnold 

11  See  my  Jesus,  the  Christ,  in  the  Light  of  Psychology,  New  York, 
1917,  Chap.  XI,  p.  694,  et  seq. 
14  See  the  end  of  the  last  chapter. 
KIbid. 

H5 


SENESCENCE 

and  by  the  lugubrious  phase  of  Walt  Whitman,  both 
written  after  decrepitude  had  begun.  Poems  written 
in  this  spirit  arouse  the  question  whether  old  age  is 
intrinsically  pessimistic  or  perhaps  even  pathological. 
Should  senescents  express  or  repress  the  inexorable  and 
progressive  limitations  and  weaknesses  senescence 
brings  in  its  train,  or  strive  to  ignore  if  they  cannot  be 
oblivious  to  them?  Are  not  such  abandonments  to 
pathos,  in  their  deeper  psychological  motivation,  a  cry 
for  pity,  to  which  strong  souls  feel  it  unworthy  to 
appeal?  Are  they  perhaps  atavistic  vestiges  or  echoes 
of  a  time  when  the  old  were  more  cruelly  treated  ?  Why 
spend  time  and  energy  in  mourning  for  what  old  age 
takes  away  rather  than  in  finding  "joy  in  what  remains 
behind"  and  which  no  other  stage  of  life  can  give? 
Hysterical  symptoms  are  often  only  an  appeal  for 
sympathy  by  those  who  crave,  perhaps  subconsciously, 
more  attention  and  service,  which  only  selfishness  would 
think  lacking.  Psychopaths  and  paranoiacs  have  often 
made  literary  capital  of  their  aberrations,  as  have 
adolescents  out  of  the  ferments  peculiar  to  their  age. 
All  this  has  its  place  but  should,  in  my  opinion,  always 
be  known  as  what  it  is,  namely,  abnormal  and  aberrant 
and  thus  belonging  entirely  to  science  and  not  to  literary 
art. 

The  third  or  reminiscent  type  expresses  the  inveterate 
instinct  of  the  old  to  look  back  upon  life,  to  illumine  and 
interpret  its  memories  by  such  philosophy  as  experience 
brings,  in  some  measure,  to  all  who  can  reflect.  It  is 
a  happy  circumstance  that  senile  amnesia  always  begins 
with  the  loss  of  recent  recollections,  while  those  of  early 
life  are  only  later  and  very  rarely  effaced.  This  resource 
is  always  open  to  the  aged,  who  can  relive  the  most 
interesting  stages  of  their  early  and  adult  lives,  unify 
them,  and  draw  the  moral  of  them  as  a  whole.  The 
world  owes  much  and,  as  it  grows  old,  will  owe  ever 
146 


LITERATURE  BY  AND  ON  THE  AGED 

more  to  the  autobiographic  impulse  of  those  who  achieve 
normal  senectitude. 

The  following  is  Matthew  Arnold's  "Growing  Old": 

What  is  it  to  grow  old? 

Is  it  to  lose  the  glory  of  the  form, 

The  lustre  of  the  eye? 

Is  it  for  beauty  to  forego  her  wreath  ? 

— Yes,  but  not  this  alone. 


Is  it  to  feel  our  strength — 

Not  our  bloom  only,  but  our  strength — decay? 

Is  it  to  feel  each  limb 

Grow  stiffer,  every  function  less  exact, 

Each  nerve  more  loosely  strung? 

Yes,  this,  and  more;  but  not 

Ah,  'tis  not  what  in  youth  we  dream'd  'twould  be! 

"Pis  not  to  have  our  life 

Mellow'd  and  soften'd  as  with  sunset-glow, 

A  golden  day's  decline. 

Tis  not  to  see  the  world 

As  from  a  height,  with  rapt  prophetic  eyes, 

And  heart  profoundly  stirr'd; 

And  weep,  and  feel  the  fulness  of  the  past. 

The  years  that  are  no  more. 

It  is  to  spend  long  days 

And  not  once  feel  that  we  were  ever  young; 

It  is  to  add,  immured 

In  the  hot  prison  of  the  present,  month 

To  month  with  weary  pain. 

It  is  to  suffer  this, 

And  feel  but  half,  and  feebly,  what  we  feel 

Deep  in  our  hidden  heart 

Festers  the  dull  remembrance  of  a  change, 

But  no  emotion — none. 

147 


SENESCENCE 

It  is— last  stage  of  all—- 
When we  are  frozen  up  within,  and  quite 
The  phantom  of  ourselves, 
To  hear  the  world  applaud  the  hollow  ghost, 
Which  blamed  the  living  man. 

From  Walt  Whitman  I   quote  the  following  four 


THANKS  IN  OLD  AGE 

Thanks  in  old  age — thanks  ere  I  go, 

For  health,  the  midday  sun,  the  impalpable  air — for  life,  mere  life, 

For  precious  ever-lingering  memories,  (of  you  my  mother  dear — 

you,  father — you,  brothers,  sisters,  friends,) 
For  all  my  days — not  those  of  peace  alone — the  days  of  war  the 

same, 

For  gentle  words,  caresses,  gifts  from  foreign  lands, 
For  shelter,  wine  and  meat — for  sweet  appreciation. 

A  CAROL  CLOSING  SIXTY-NINE 

Of  me  myself — the  jocund  heart  yet  beating  in  my  breast, 

The  body  wreck'd,  old,  poor  and  paralyzed — the  strange  inertia 

falling  pall-like  round  me, 

The  burning  fires  down  in  my  sluggish  blood  not  yet  extinct, 
The  undiminish'd  faith — the  groups  of  loving  friends. 

QUERIES  TO  MY  SEVENTIETH  YEAR 

Approaching,  nearing,  curious, 

Thou  dim,  uncertain  spectre — bringest  thou  life  or  death? 

Strength,  weakness,  blindness,  more  paralysis  and  heavier  ? 

Or  placid  skies  and  sun?    Wilt  stir  the  waters  yet? 

Or  haply  cut  me  short  for  good  ?    Or  leave  me  here  as  now, 

Dull,  parrot-like  and  old,  with  crack'd  voice  harping,  screeching? 

As  I  SIT  WRITING  HERE 

As  I  sit  writing  here,  sick  and  grown  old, 

Not  my  least  burden  is  that  dulness  of  the  years,  querilities, 

Ungracious  glooms,  aches,   lethargy,   constipation,   whimpering 

ennui, 
May  filter  in  my  daily  songs. 

"  By  permission  of,  and  special  arrangement  with,  Doubleday,  Page  &  Co. 

148 


LITERATURE  BY  AND  ON  THE  AGED 

Longfellow  strikes  a  less  pessimistic  note  :3r 

MORITURI  SALUTAMUS 
Ah,  nothing  is  too  late 
Till  the  tired  heart  shall  cease  to  palpitate. 
Cato  learned  Greek  at  80;  Sophocles 
Wrote  his  grand  CEdipus,  and  Simonides 
Bore  off  the  prize  of  verse 
From  his  compeers 

When  each  had  numbered  more  than  four-score  years. 
And  Theophrastus  at  four-score  and  ten 
Had  but  begun  his  characters  of  men. 
Chaucer  at  Wadstock,  with  the  nightingales, 
At  sixty  wrote  The  Canterbury  Tales. 
Goethe  at  Weimar,  toiling  to  the  last, 
Completed  Faust  when  eighty  years  were  past. 
These  are,  indeed,  exceptions,  but  they  show 
How  far  the  gulf  stream  of  our  youth  may  flow 
Into  the  Arctic  regions  of  our  lives 
Where  little  else  but  life  itself  survives. 

Whatever  poet,  orator,  or  sage 
May  say  of  it,  old  age  is  still  old  age. 
It  is  the  waning,  not  the  crescent,  moon, 
The  dusk  of  evening,  not  the  blaze  of  noon. 
It  is  not  strength  but  weakness,  not  desire 
But  its  surcease,  not  the  fierce  heat  of  fire, 
The  burning  and  consuming  element, 
But  that  of  ashes  and  of  embers  spent. 
In  which  some  living  sparks  we  still  discern, 
Enough  to  warm  but  not  enough  to  burn. 
What,  then,  shall  we  sit  idly  down  and  say 
The  night  hath  come ;  it  is  no  longer  day  ? 
The  night  hath  not  come ;  we  are  not  quite 
Cut  off  from  labor  by  the  failing  light. 
Something  remains  for  us  to  do  or  dare, 
Even  the  oldest  tree  some  fruit  may  bear. 
Not  QEdipus  Colonus,  or  Greek  Ode, 
Or  tales  of  pilgrims  that  one  morning  rode 
Out  of  the  gateway  of  the  Tabard  Inn. 
But  other  something  would  we  but  begin, 

"  By  permission  of,  and  special  arrangement  with,  Houghton  Mifflin  Co. 
149 


SENESCENCE 

For  age  is  opportunity  no  less 
Than  youth  itself,  though  in  another  dress, 
And  as  the  evening  twilight  fades  away 
The  sky  is  filled  with  stars  invisible  by  day. 

I  also  append  the  following  quotations : 

At  sixty-two  life  is  begun, 
At  seventy-three  begins  once  more; 
Fly  swifter  as  thou  near'st  the  sun 
And  brighter  shine  at  eighty-four. 

At  ninety-five 

Shouldst  thou  arrive 
Still  wait  on  God  and  work  and  thrive. 

It  has  been  sung  by  ancient  sages 
That  love  of  life  increases  with  years 
So  much  that  in  our  later  stages, 
When  bones  grow  sharp  and  sickness  rages 
The  greatest  love  of  life  appears. 

Hard  choice  for  man  to  die  or  else  to  be 

That  tottering,  wretched,  wrinkled  thing  you  see, 

Age  then  we  all  prefer ;  for  age  we  pray ; 

And  travel  on  to  life's  last  lingering  day, 

Then  sinking  slowly  down  from  worse  to  worse, 

Find  Heaven's  extorted  boon  our  greatest  curse. 

Many  a  man  passes  his  youth  in  preparing  misery  for  his  age, 
and  his  age  in  repairing  the  misconduct  of  his  youth. 

It  is  easy  to  die  but  difficult  to  die  at  the  right  time. 

The  danger  of  shipwreck  is  less  in  mid-ocean  than  near  to  shore. 

Time  wears  out  masks ;  the  old  show  what  they  are. 

The  misfortunes  of  life  are  that  we  are  born  young  and  become 
old. 

Grow  old  along  with  me ! 

The  best  is  yet  to  be, 

The  last  of  life,  for  which  the  first  was  made! 

150 


LITERATURE  BY  AND  ON  THE  AGED 

What  I  aspired  to  be, 
And  was  not,  comforts  me. 

BROWNING:  Rabbi  Ben  Ezra. 

What  is  age  but  youth's  full  bloom 
And  retiring,  more  transcendent  youth? 

Old  men  must  die  or  the  world  would  grow  mouldy,  would 
only  breed  the  past  again. — TENNYSON  :  Becket. 

Youth  is  a  blunder;  manhood  a  struggle;  old  age  a  regret. — 
DISRAELI:  Coningsby. 

See  how  the  world  its  veterans  rewards ! 
A  youth  of  frolics,  an  old  age  of  cards. 

POPE:  Moral  Essays. 

Alonso  of  Aragon  was  wont  to  say  in  commendation  of  age, 
that  age  appears  to  be  best  in  four  things — old  wood  best  to  burn, 
old  wine  to  drink,  old  friends  to  trust,  and  old  authors  to  read. — 
BACON  :  Apothegms. 

Dr.  Clara  Barrus,  who  for  many  years  has  labored  in 
the  closest  personal  contact  with  John  Burroughs,  has 
kindly  sent  me,  along  with  much  other  information,  the 
notes  he  made  during  the  last  months  of  his  life  for  an 
article  that  he  never  lived  to  complete  on  Old  Age.  The 
quotations  and  appercus  that  he  collected  and  that  most 
impressed  him  were  such  as  the  following : 

As  men  grow  old  they  grow  more  foolish  and  more  wise. 
Young  saint,  old  devil ;  young  devil,  old  saint. 
A  man  at  sixteen  will  prove  a  child  at  sixty. 

When  men  grow  virtuous  in  their  old  age  they  only  make  a 
sacrifice  to  God  of  the  devil's  leavings. 

Nobody  loves  life  like  an  old  man. 

An  old  young  man  will  make  a  young  old  man. 


SENESCENCE 

Old  age  is  a  tyrant  who  forbids  men,  under  pain  of  death,  the 
pleasures  of  youth. 

Reckless  youth  makes  rueful  age. 

Young  men  think  old  men  fools  and  old  men  know  young  men 
to  be  so. 

The  evening  of  life  brings  with  it  its  lamps. 

A  youthful  age  is  desirable  but  aged  youth  is  troublesome  and 
grievous. 

To  me  the  worst  thing  about  old  age  is  that  one  has  outlived 
all  his  old  friends.  The  past  becomes  a  cemetery. 

It  is  characteristic  of  old  age  to  reverse  its  opinions  and  its 
likes  and  dislikes.  But  it  does  not  reverse  them ;  it  revises  them. 
If  its  years  have  been  well  spent  it  has  reached  a  higher  position 
from  which  to  overlook  Life ;  it  commands  a  wider  view. 

Old  Age  may  reason  well  but  old  age  does  not  remember  well. 
The  power  of  attention  fails,  which  we  so  often  mistake  for 
deafness  in  the  old.  It  is  the  mind  that  is  blunted  and  not 
the  ear.  Hence  we  octogenarians  so  often  ask  for  your  question 
over  again.  We  do  not  grasp  it  the  first  time.  We  do  not  want 
you  to  speak  louder.  We  only  need  to  focus  upon  you  a  little 
more  completely. 

I  probably  make  more  strenuous  demands  upon  him  who  aspires 
to  be  a  poet  than  ever  before.  I  see  more  clearly  than  ever  before 
that  sweetened  prose  put  up  in  verse  form  does  not  make  poetry 
any  more  than  sweetened  water  put  in  the  comb  in  the  hive  makes 
honey.  The  quality  of  the  man  makes  all  the  difference  in  the 
world.  A  great  nature  can  describe  birds  and  flowers  and  clouds 
and  sunsets  and  spring  and  autumn  greatly. 

We  in  our  generation  have  become  so  familiar  with  a  universe 
so  much  larger  than  that  known  to  the  Ancients  that  we  naturally 
wonder  how  the  wise  men  of  Greece  and  Rome  and  of  Judea 
could  have  had  or  seem  to  have  had  so  little  curiosity  about  the 
earth  upon  which  they  lived  and  of  which  they  were  so  ignorant. 

152 


LITERATURE  BY  AND  ON  THE  AGED 

Cicero  found  that  age  increased  the  pleasure  of  conversation. 
It  is  certainly  true  that  in  age  we  do  find  our  tongues  if  we  have 
any.  They  are  unloosened,  and  when  the  young  or  middle-aged 
sit  silent  the  octogenarian  is  a  fountain  of  conversation.  In  age 
one  set  of  pleasures  is  gone  and  another  takes  its  place. 

The  old  man  reasons  well,  the  judgment  is  clear,  the  mind 
active,  the  conscience  alert,  the  interest  in  life  unabated.  It  is 
the  memory  that  plays  the  old  man  tricks. 

Names  and  places  with  which  one  has  been  perfectly  familiar 
all  his  life  suddenly,  for  a  few  moments,  mean  nothing.  It  is 
as  if  the  belt  slipped  and  the  wheel  did  not  go  around.  Then 
the  next  moment  away  it  goes  again.  Or  shall  we  call  it  a  kind 
of  mental  anesthetic  or  paralysis?  Thus,  the  other  day  I  was 
reading  something  about  Georgetown,  S.  A.  I  repeated  the  name 
over  to  myself  a  few  times.  Have  I  not  known  such  a  place  some 
time,  in  my  life.  Where  is  it?  "Georgetown."  "Georgetown." 
The  name  seems  like  a  dream.  Then  I  thought  of  Washington, 
the  Capitol,  and  the  city  above  it,  but  had  to  ask  a  friend  if  its 
name  was  Georgetown.  Then  suddenly  as  if  some  chemical  had 
been  rubbed  on  a  bit  of  invisible  writing,  out  it  came !  Of  course 
it  was  Georgetown.  How  could  I  have  been  in  doubt  about  it; 
I  had  lived  in  Washington  for  ten  years. 


CHAPTER   IV 

STATISTICS  OF  OLD  AGE  AND  ITS  CARE 

I— Numbers  of  old  people  increasing  in  all  known  lands  where  data  are 
available — Actuarial  and  other  mortality  tables— Expectation  of  life 
and  death-rate  at  different  ages— Longevity  and  fecundity — Death-rate 
in  different  occupations — Irving  Fisher's  ideas  on  longevity — The  popu- 
lation problem — Longevity  in  ancient  Egypt  and  in  the  Middle  Ages — 
Diversity  of  statistical  methods  and  results. 

II — Growing  need  of  care  for  the  indigent  old — Causes  of  improvidence — 
Ignorance  and  misconception  of  what  old  age  is  and  means — Why  the 
old  do  not  know  themselves — Old  age  pensions  in  Germany,  Austria, 
Great  Britain  and  her  colonies,  France,  Belgium,  United  States — Indus- 
trial pensions  and  insurance,  beginning  with  railroads — Trades  unions — 
Fraternal  organizations — Retiring  pensions  in  the  army  and  navy — 
Local  and  national  insurance  —  Teachers'  pensions  —  The  Carnegie 
Foundation — Criticism  of  pension  systems — Growing  magnitude,  ur- 
gency, and  diversity  of  views  and  methods — The  Life  Extension  Insti- 
tute— "Borrowed  Time"  and  "Sunset"  clubs — Should  the  old  organize? 

BEFORE  discussing  the  nature  and  functions  of  old  age, 
which  chiefly  concern  us  in  this  volume,  we  must  in  a 
brief,  summary  way  answer  two  preliminary  questions : 
(i)  how  many  old  people  are  there  in  the  registration 
areas  of  the  world  to-day  as  compared  to  earlier  times 
and  to  the  total  population;  and  (2)  what  is  done  for 
them  publicly  and  privately.  Each  of  these  topics  has  a 
copious  literature  and  experts  of  its  own.  On  the  first 
or  statistical  problem  there  is  still  great  diversity  of 
methods  and  results,  which  I  simply  present  and  make 
no  attempt  to  harmonize,  for  this  would  be  premature. 
As  to  the  second  point,  of  care,  I  have  also  attempted 
only  a  bird's-eye  view  and  avoided  details. 

154 


STATISTICS  OF  OLD  AGE  AND  ITS  CARE 


I 

The  population  between  the  ages  of  65  and  74  in 
various  countries  (iQOo)1  is  as  follows:  United  King- 
dom— 1,418,000  (including  England,  Ireland,  Scotland, 
Wales,  of  which  England  and  Wales  have  1,076,000; 
Scotland,  151,000;  Ireland,  191,000)  ;  Germany — 2,003,- 
ooo;  Prussia — 1,185,000;  France — 2,246,000;  Italy — 
1,435,000;  United  States — 2,186,000. 

The  percentage  of  the  population  65  and  upwards  in 
various  countries  is:  United  Kingdom — 5  per  cent  (in 
England,  Wales,  and  Scotland  the  percentage  is  5  per 
cent,  and  in  Ireland  6  per  cent)  ;  Germany — 5  per  cent; 
France — 8  per  cent ;  Italy — 6  per  cent ;  United  States — 
4  per  cent. 

Allyn  A.  Young2  gives  a  table  bringing  out  the  'follow- 
ing facts,  taking  the  population  of  continental  United 
States  in  1900  as  75,994,575  as  a  basis: 


Age 

POPULATION 

Native  White 

Foreign  White 

Colored 

Total 

70 

75 
80 
85 
90 
95 
99 

123,818 
79,214 
42,095 
17,271 

4,551 
833 
195 

66,941 
40,886 
19,559 
7,059 
1,796 
430 
168 

18,213 
1  0,06  1 
6,995 
2,854 
1,190 
766 
255 

208,972 
130,161 
68,649 
27,184 
7,539 
2,029 
618 

Solomon  S.  Huebner3  says  a  mortality  table  is  a  pic- 
ture of  a  generation  of  individuals  passing  through  time. 
He  takes  a  group  of  them  and  traces  their  history  year 
by  year  until  all  have  died.  The  American  Experience 

'From  Webb's  New  Dictionary  of  Statistics,  1911,  p.  471. 

2  A  Discussion  of  Age  Statistics,  Rept.  13,  Bull.  Bur.  Census,  1004, 

1  Life  Insurance,  N.  Y.,  1915. 

155 


SENESCENCE 


tables,  almost  exclusively  used  for  computation  by  the 
old  insurance  companies,  contain  the  following  and  are 
based  on  100,000  individuals: 

AMERICAN  EXPERIENCE  TABLE  OF  MORTALITY 


Number 

Number 

Number 

Number 

Living  at 

Dying 

Living  at 

Dying 

Age 

Beginning  of 

during 

Age 

Beginning  of 

during 

Designated 

Designated 

Designated 

Designated 

Year 

Year 

Year 

Year 

70 

38,569 

2,39i 

83 

8,603 

1,648 

71 

36,178 

2,448 

84 

6,955 

1470 

72 

33,730 

2,487 

85 

5,485 

1,292 

73 

31,243 

2,505 

86 

4,193 

1,114 

74 

28,738 

2,501 

87 

3,079 

933 

75 

26,237 

2,476 

88 

2,146 

744 

76 

23,761 

2,43i 

89 

1,402 

555 

77 

21,330 

2,369 

90 

847 

385 

78 

18,961 

2,291 

91 

462 

246 

79 

16,670 

2,196 

92 

216 

137 

80 

14,474 

2,091 

93 

79 

58 

•l 

12,383 

1,964 

94 

21 

18 

82 

10,419 

1,816 

95 

3 

3 

In  a  table  headed  "Actuaries'  or  Combined  Experience 
Table  of  Mortality"  *  we  have  the  following,  taking 
100,000  persons  of  ten  years  of  age  as  the  basis : 


Age 

Probable  Number 
of  Persons  Living 

Expectation 
of  Life 

70 

35,837 

8-54 

75 

24,100 

6.48 

80 

13,290 

4.78 

85 

5,417 

3-36 

90 

1,319 

2.II 

95 

89 

1.  12 

99 

1 

•50 

In  a  very  valuable  state  report5  collating  data  from 
many  sources  for  convenient  use  by  the  legislature  it 

*  World  Almanac,  1921,  p.  438. 

*  Report  of  a  Special  Inquiry  Relative  to  Aged  and  Dependent  Persons 
in  Massachusetts,  1915. 

156 


STATISTICS  OF  OLD  AGE  AND  ITS  CARE 

appears  that  the  total  number  of  persons  65  or  over  in 
Massachusetts  by  the  census  of  April  i,  1915,  was  189,- 
047.  It  is  generally  supposed  that  during  recent  years 
the  ratio  of  the  aged  to  the  total  population  has  increased, 
but  the  tables  show  that  in  Massachusetts  this  did  not 
hold  true  for  the  forty  years  ending  in  1915.  Mortality 
rates  in  most  localities  have  fallen,  but  improved  condi- 
tions of  life  have  not  affected  the  ratio  of  the  aged  to 
the  total.  Still,  the  duration  of  life  has  continuously 
increased,  owing  to  medical  and  sanitary  science  and 
improved  standards  of  living;  and  while  the  younger 
element  of  the  population  has  been  chiefly  affected,  the 
span  of  life  of  the  aged  has  also  been  somewhat  pro- 
longed. Hence  if  this  tendency  continues  the  need  of 
pensioning  would  increase. 

A.  Newsholme8  presents  a  table  giving  the  annual 
death  rate,  per  million  persons  living,  from  a  few 
prominent  diseases,  showing  that  there  is  a  falling  off 
in  the  death  rate  from  old  age.  The  author  adds:  "If 
this  were  a  real  falling  off,  it  would  not  be  an  indis- 
putable advantage  as  most  people  would  prefer  to  die 
of  old  age.  The  decline  under  this  head,  however,  is 
chiefly  due  to  an  improved  specification  of  the  causes 
of  which  the  old  die."  He  gives  copious  statistics 
on  the  causes  of  death.  He  also  gives  an  interesting 
table  (p.  237)  on  the  basis  of  100,000  of  each  sex,  show- 
ing graphically  the  steady  decline  in  death  liability  and 
that  the  percentage  of  death  is  least  at  12  and  the  early 
teens  and  soon  after  begins  slightly  to  increase,  falling 
somewhat  more  rapidly  after  40  and  then  becoming  a 
little  less  rapid  after  70;  while  at  90,  only  2,000  of  the 
original  100,000  remain  alive. 

Director  Sam  L.  Rogers  of  the  Bureau  of  the  Census 
published  tables  of  vitality  statistics7  to  show  expecta- 

'  The  Elements  of  Vital  Statistics,  Lond.,  1909,  326  pp. 

7  "Death  Rate  and  Expectation  of  Life,"  Science,  vol.  43,  1916. 

157 


SENESCENCE 

tion  of  life  at  all  ages  for  the  population  of  New  Eng- 
land, New  York,  New  Jersey,  Indiana,  Michigan,  and 
the  District  of  Columbia  (these  being  the  mortality 
death  registration  states)  on  the  basis  of  the  population 
in  1910  and  the  mortality  for  three  years.  They  are  like 
life  tables  of  insurance  companies  with  the  exception 
that  they  are  based  on  the  whole  population.  According 
to  these  tables  the  average  expectation  of  life  for  males 
at  birth  is  49.9  years;  for  females,  52.2.  Expectation 
of  white  males  reaches  its  maximum  at  the  age  of  2 
(57.7  years).  At  the  age  of  12,  it  is  59.2  years;  at  25, 
39.4;  at  40,  28.3;  at  50,  21.2;  at  60,  14.6;  at  70,  9.1; 
at  80,  5.2  years.  During  the  first  month  of  life  the 
death  rate  of  native  white  boys  is  nearly  28  per  cent 
higher  than  that  for  girls.  The  twelfth  year  seems  to 
be  the  healthiest  for  the  native  whites  and  thereafter 
there  is  continuous  increase  in  the  death  rate.  Expecta- 
tion of  life  is  not  the  same  as  saying  that  a  man  has  an 
even  chance  of  living  that  number  of  years,  because 
expectation  represents  the  average  remaining  length  of 
life  at  any  given  age  in  a  stationary  population.  A  native 
white  male  child  at  birth  has  one  chance  in  two  of  reach- 
ing sixty.  At  the  end  of  his  first  year  he  has  more  than 
an  even  chance  of  reaching  sixty-four.  At  forty-two 
he  has  an  even  chance  of  attaining  seventy.  At  all  ages 
women  live  longer  than  men  and  expectation  in  the 
country  at  all  ages  is  distinctly  greater  than  in  the  city. 
R.  Henderson's  work8  sets  forth  the  theoretical  rela- 
tions with  reference  to  the  duration  of  human  life,  de- 
scribing those  mortality  tables  that  have  had  the  greatest 
influence  on  the  development  of  the  science  of  life  con- 
tingency and  its  applications  in  this  country.  The  author 
establishes  a  connection  between  mortality  tables  and 
mortality  statistics  and  tells  how  to  interpret  the  latter. 

1  Table  of  Mortality  Statistics. 

158 


STATISTICS  OF  OLD  AGE  AND  ITS  CARE 

The  methods  of  constructing  mortality  tables  from  cen- 
sus and  death  returns  and  from  insurance  experience 
are  then  taken  up.  The  writer  deals  only  with  life  con- 
tingencies and  not  at  all  with  monetary  applications  and 
gives  us  a  new  table.  "The  present  value  of  a  sum  of 
money  payable  at  death  cannot  be  properly  calculated 
in  assuming  it  to  be  payable  at  the  end  of  a  definite 
period  equal  to  the  expectation  of  life."  Nor  can  the 
present  value  of  a  life  annuity  be  calculated  by  assuming 
it  to  be  certainly  payable  for  that  period. 

W.  S.  Rankin9  tells  how  he  applies  vital  statistics  to 
sick  towns  or  cities  in  a  way  to  first  restore  conscious- 
ness by  telling  them  just  where  they  stand  relatively  with 
regard  to  death  rates  and  second  to  bring  about  reforms. 
He  has  various  charts  and  diagrams.  The  opinion  of 
prominent  people  in  every  community  is,  in  general,  that 
their  health  conditions  are  good,  but  when  asked  what 
the  death  rate  is  they  can  give  no  answer.  One  com- 
munity compelled  a  railroad  to  build  and  maintain  an 
expensive  overhead  bridge  at  a  cost  of  $1,500  a  year  to 
prevent  one  death  and  the  aldermen  appropriated  only 
$150  to  prevent  fifty  deaths.  The  first  thing  in  treating 
sick  social  organisms  is  to  restore  consciousness. 

Alexander  Graham  Bell10  in  the  study  of  a  family 
which  is  almost  classic  found  that  the  average  duration 
of  life  was  34.6  years;  35.2  per  cent  of  these  persons 
died  before  they  were  20  years  of  age,  and  7.3  per  cent 
lived  to  be  80  or  older.  A  second  danger  period  was 
found  in  adolescence,  ending  at  23.  Both  sexes  showed 
an  increase  of  deaths  during  adolescence.  More  females 
than  males  lived  to  be  95.  But  the  fathers,  on  the  aver- 

9  "The  Influence  of  Vital  Statistics  on  Longevity."  Address  at  the 
sixth  annual  meeting  of  the  Association  of  American  Life  Insurance 
Presidents,  Dec.,  1912. 

™The  Duration  of  Life  and  Conditions  Associated  with  Longevity: 
A  study  of  the  Hyde  genealogy  (dealing  with  8,797  persons)  ending,  for 
the  most  part,  with  the  year  1825. 

159 


SENESCENCE 

age,  lived  longer  than  the  mothers  and  the  children  born 
between  four  and  eight  years  after  the  marriage  of  their 
parents  lived  longer  than  those  born  later.  Those  who 
live  to  be  old  come  from  long-lived  parents.  The  long- 
lived  seem  to  inherit  disease-resisting  qualities  and  also 
are  more  fecund  than  the  short-lived.  He  says11  that  in 
this  family  mothers  who  lived  to  extreme  old  age  had, 
on  the  average,  larger  families  than  those  who  died 
earlier  in  life,  for  example,  those  who  died  before  forty 
had,  on  the  average,  only  three  to  four  children  apiece. 
The  long-lived  proportion  is  practically  doubled  when 
one  parent  lives  to  be  old  and  quadrupled  when  both 
parents  do  so.  The  people  who  lived  to  be  old  repre- 
sented the  disease-resistant  strain  of  their  generation 
and  on  account  of  their  superior  fecundity  this  quality 
is  distributed  largely  throughout  the  population.  "A 
very  large  proportion  of  each  generation  is  sprung  from 
a  very  small  proportion  of  the  preceding  generation; 
namely,  from  the  people  who  lived  to  old  age.  The  mem- 
bers of  the  short-lived  group  come  from  the  short-lived 
parents.  The  children  of  the  long-lived  parents  are  on 
the  average  stronger,  more  vigorous,  and  longer-lived 
than  the  children  of  others,  and  there  were  more  of  them 
per  family." 

Scott  Nearing12  says  that  the  years  from  45  to  60  or 
65  should  be  the  most  valuable  ones  from  the  social  point 
of  view.  He  reminds  us  that  if  the  average  length  of 
life  were  doubled  the  population  would  in  a  generation 
double  without  any  increase  in  the  birth  rate.  The  aver- 
age length  of  life  in  the  leading  countries  of  the  world 
varies  much.  In  Sweden,  for  males  it  is  53.9;  France, 
45.7;  England  and  Wales,  44.1;  Massachusetts,  44.1; 
India,  23.0.  Men  born  in  America  of  native  white 
parents  live  on  the  average  only  31  years;  those  born 

u"Who  Shall  Inherit  Long  Life?"  Nat.  Geog.  Mag.,  June,  1919. 
"Social  Adjustment,  New  York,  1911. 

160 


STATISTICS  OF  OLD  AGE  AND  ITS  CARE 

of  foreign  white  parents,  29. 1  years.  Men  in  the  modern 
cities  die  when  they  are  one  score  and  ten.  There  is 
a  great  difference  in  occupations:  for  shoemakers  the 
death  rate  per  thousand  is  8.7;  farmers,  11.02;  tailors, 
13.65;  cigar  and  tobacco  makers,  21.67;  servants,  21.78; 
and  laborers,  22.3.  Such  figures  suggest  the  dangerous 
occupations.  As  to  the  length  of  the  working  life,  from 
J5  to  65,  out  of  every  one  thousand  males  living  at  the 
age  of  15,  440  will  survive  to  the  age  of  65,  while  the 
rest  will  have  fallen  out  for  some  cause.  So  society 
has  lost  more  than  half  its  working  force  at  the  end 
of  the  working  period.  In  the  i6th  century  the  average 
length  of  life  he  estimates  at  21.2  years;  in  the  I7th, 
25.7;  in  the  i8th,  33.6;  and  in  the  igth,  nearly  40  years. 
Finkenberg  thinks  that  in  the  i6th  century  it  was  be- 
tween 1 8  and  20  years;  at  the  close  of  the  i8th,  over 
30;  while  to-day  it  is  from  38  to  40.  We  have  no  data 
for  the  United  States  as  a  whole  that  are  of  any  value. 
Among  males  in  England  the  average  length  of  life  is 
increasing  at  the  rate  of  14  years  per  century;  France, 
10;  Denmark,  25;  Massachusetts,  14.  Although  these 
figures  are  only  approximations,  Nearing  thinks  life  is 
probably  twice  as  long  as  it  was  a  few  centuries  ago. 
Irving  Fisher13  says  in  Europe  the  span  of  life  is 
double  that  in  India.  The  death  rate  in  Dublin  is  twice 
that  of  Amsterdam  and  three  times  that  of  rural  Michi- 
gan. Life  is  probably  twice  as  long  as  it  was  three  or 
four  centuries  ago  and  is  increasing  more  rapidly  now 
than  ever.  The  rate  of  progress  is  very  variable  in 
different  countries,  the  maximum  being  in  Prussia.  Im- 
provement is  most  in  females  and  the  rate  of  increase 
is  accelerated  perhaps  four  years  a  century  on  the  whole, 
although  during  the  last  three-quarters  of  the  nineteenth 
century  Fisher  thinks  it  has  increased  nine  years.  At 

""Report   on   National   Vitality,"   Bulletin  of  the  Committee   of   One 
Hundred  on  National  Health,  July,  1909,  No.  30. 

161 


SENESCENCE 

least  fourteen  years  could  be  added  to  human  life  by 
eliminating  preventable  diseases,  which  would  be  the 
equivalent  of  reducing  the  death  rate  about  23  per  cent. 
In  a  table  he  shows  that  seven  of  the  ninety  causes  of 
death  are  responsible  for  over  one-half  of  the  shortening 
of  life.  He  gives  us  a  diagram  that  shows  where  the 
saving  of  life  has  been  and  might  be  greatest.  The  area 
between  the  curves  shows  that  from  1855  to  1897,  550,- 
ooo  years  were  saved  for  a  supposed  group  of  100,000 
persons,  or  5.5  years  per  person.  The  addition  of  12.8 
years  to  the  lifetime  of  each  of  100,000  persons  might 
be  divided  into  three  groups,  namely,  that  of  prepara- 
tien,  the  working  period,  and  the  decline.  The  chief 
cause  of  prolongation  is  found  in  new  hygienic  ideals. 

Metchnikoff  thought  that  the  lengthening  of  human 
life  would  at  once  decrease  the  burden  on  the  productive 
period,  which  is  some  55  per  cent  of  the  total  years  lived 
— assuming  the  working  period  to  be  from  17  to  60 — 
and  that  the  latter  limit  would  shift  forward.  As  life 
becomes  complex  and  as  knowledge  increases  the  period 
of  preparation  should  be  prolonged.  Men  should  grad- 
uate later.  Life  should  be  lived  on  a  larger  scale,  with 
more  utilization  of  accumulated  experience  and  less  dis- 
astrous immaturity.  Now  we  have  to  force  young  men 
into  positions  prematurely  because  of  their  vitality. 
Metchnikoff  says  "Old  age,  at  present  practically  a  use- 
less burden  on  the  community,  will  become  a  period  of 
work  valuable  to  it."  Human  life  will  become  much 
longer  and  the  par  value  of  old  people  will  become  much 
more  important  than  it  is  to-day. 

Willcox  thinks  the  death  rate  in  the  United  States 
is  at  least  eighteen  per  thousand.  Moreover,  we  have 
some  three  million  persons  always  on  the  sick  list,  more 
among  the  old  than  the  young  since  morbidity  increases 
in  age.  But  at  least  one-third  are  in  the  working  period. 
The  loss  by  consumptives  alone  is  figured  at  sixty  mil- 

162 


STATISTICS  OF  OLD  AGE  AND  ITS  CARE 

lion  dollars.  Now,  it  costs  no  more  to  raise  a  man 
capable  of  living  eighty  years  than  it  does  to  grow  one 
who  has  the  capacity  of  living  only  forty.  Health  means 
increased  vitality  and  makes  life,  in  Mallock's  phrase, 
better  worth  the  living,  for  health  is  the  first  wealth. 
We  can  do  much  to  raise  American  vitality. 

Fisher  adds14  that  in  the  United  States  the  general 
death  rate  has  steadily  fallen  for  several  decades,  as  is 
common  in  all  civilized  countries'.]  Many  think  this 
means  a  gain  in  national  vitality.  This  may  be  true 
for  the  younger  age  but  the  "gain  has  served  to  mask 
a  loss  of  vitality  at  the  older  age  periods.  This  latter 
phenomenon,  a  rising  mortality  in  elderly  life,  is  some- 
thing almost  peculiar  to  the  United  States."  In  other 
lands  this  fall  in  death  rate  has  been  due  not  solely  to 
the  reduction  of  mortality  in  infancy  and  adult  life,  for 
most  countries  have  improved  their  mortality  at  every 
age  period.  Probably  this  is  due  to  "some  unknown 
biologic  influence  or  to  the  amalgamation  of  the  various 
races  that  constitute  our  population.  It  must  be  ascribed 
in  a  broad  sense  to  lack  of  adaptation  to  our  rapidly 
developing  civilization."  The  American  decreases  in 
younger  ages  are  not  as  great  as  in  England  and  Wales 
and  they  change  into  increase  at  about  the  age  of  forty- 
five  and  continue  to  increase  thereafter,  while  in  Eng- 
land and  Wales  the  decline  occurs  at  all  ages.  In  1900 
or  thereabouts  the  death  rates  in  the  middle  ages  of  life 
were  heavier  in  the  United  States  than  in  Prussia, 
France,  Italy,  and  Sweden.  Since  then  death  rates  in 
the  United  States  at  these  ages  have  grown  even  greater. 

Better  hygienic  methods,  according  to  Fisher,15 
started  with  Pasteur,  who  said  it  was  within  the  power 
of  man  to  rid  himself  of  every  parasitic  disease. 
Hygienists  have  followed  this  clue.  The  Roosevelt  Con- 

"  How  to  Live,  New  York,  1915,  Section  7. 

a  "The  Extension  of  Human  Life,"  Sci.  Am.  Sup.,  May  4,  1916. 

163 


SENESCENCE 

servation  Committee  in  its  report  on  national  vitality 
and  the  summary  of  European  life  tables  show  that 
human  life  lengthened  during  the  I7th  and  i8th  cen- 
turies at  the  rate  of  only  4  years  per  century,  while 
during  the  first  three-quarters  of  the  I9th  it  lengthened 
almost  twice  as  fast  and  since  that  four  times  as  fast, 
or  about  17  years  per  century.  If  we  could  continue 
to  increase  life  seventeen  years  a  century,  the  world 
would  soon  be  peopled  with  Methuselahs.  We  are  wit- 
nessing a  race  between  two  tendencies,  the  reduction  of 
the  acute  infections,  such  as  typhoid,  and  an  increase 
of  the  chronic  or  degenerative  diseases,  such  as  sclerosis, 
Bright's  disease,  etc.  The  degenerative  tendency  ap- 
pears more  in  evidence  here  than  elsewhere.  In  Sweden 
the  expectation  of  life  increases  at  all  ages.  Even  the 
nonagenarians  have  more  years  to  live  than  did  those 
of  former  days  in  the  United  States.  We  are  freer 
from  germs  than  our  ancestors  but  our  vital  organs 
wear  out  sooner.  And  this  degeneration  of  our  bodies 
follows  that  of  our  habits.  In  England,  where  these 
diseases  are  not  increasing,  individual  exercise  out  of 
doors  probably  has  something  to  do  with  it.  In  Sweden 
individual  hygiene  is  better  cultivated  than  anywhere 
else  in  the  world.  It  is  the  only  land  where  public  health 
includes  private  habits  and  touches  the  life  of  the  people, 
especially  through  the  school.  The  best  statistics  show 
that  a  large  number  of  our  young  men  and  women  suffer 
from  diseases  of  heart,  kidneys,  lungs,  and  circulation, 
with  impairment  enough  to  consult  a  physician,  that  is, 
over  half  of  our  young  men  and  women  in  active  work 
and  presumably  selected  for  their  work  as  fit,  are  found, 
although  unaware  of  the  fact  themselves,  to  be  in  need 
of  medical  attention;  while  37  per  cent  are  on  the  road 
to  impairment  because  of  the  use  of  too  much  alcohol, 
tobacco,  etc.  Now,  a  stitch  in  time  saves  nine.  Thus 
the  lesson  to  all  of  us  is  obvious. 

164 


STATISTICS  OF  OLD  AGE  AND  ITS  CARE 

I.  M.  Rubinow  "  says  the  problem  of  poverty  among 
the  old  is  connected  with  inability  to  find  work  because 
productive  power  has  waned  forever.  American  ex- 
perience in  tables  of  mortality  shows  that  of  100  persons 
at  the  age  of  20,  53  will  reach  65 ;  12,  70;  at  which  time 
the  average  expectation  of  life  will  be  8%  years.  If 
we  take  100  people  at  the  age  of  30,  53  will  live  to  65; 
48  to  70.  But  this  table  was  compiled  half  a  century 
ago,  although  it  is  still  used — to  the  great  profit  of  in- 
surance companies  as  expectation  has  greatly  increased. 
Ten  to  fifteen  years  of  life  over  sixty-five  are  assured 
to  more  than  half  all  wage  workers.  In  1880  the  per- 
centage of  persons  65  or  over  was  3.5;  in  1890,  3.9;  in 
1900,  4.2;  in  1910,  4.3.  The  number  over  65  per  1000/15 
increased  from  54  to  60  in  1890,  and  to  63  in  1910. 
Employed  males  over  65  per  1000/15  constituted  50  in 
1890;  and  in  1900,  47.  Thus  the  production  of  old  men 
is  increased  while  the  proportion  of  old  men  is  declin- 
ing. In  1880,  of  all  old  men  over  65  years  of  age,  73.8 
per  cent  were  gainfully  employed;  in  1900,  only  68.4  per 
cent.  The  total  number  of  men  over  65  in  1900  was 
1,555,000-  Thus  economic  progress  in  ten  years  meant 
an  additional  hundred  thousand  thrown  out  of  employ- 
ment. In  agriculture,  6.1  per  cent  of  the  men  employed 
are  over  65;  in  the  professions,  5.5  per  cent;  but  in 
manufacture  and  mechanics,  only  3.5  per  cent;  and  in 
trade  and  transportation,  3  per  cent.  Thus  old  men  are 
either  thrown  out  or  shifted  to  unskilled  occupations. 
What  does  the  "iron  law"  of  the  increase  of  old  age 
dependency  under  a  system  of  wage  labor  mean?  It  is 
wrong  to  seek  the  cause  in  exceptional  misfortune  or 
in  psychological  or  ethical  feeling.  The  author  of  "Old 
Age  Dependencies  in  the  United  States"  says  after  sixty 
men  become  dependent  by  easy  stages — property, 

"Social  Insurance,  New  York,  1913,  Chap.  12,  "The  Old  Man's  Problem 
in.  Modern  Industry." 

165 


SENESCENCE 

friends,  relatives,  and  ambition  go  and  only  a  few  years 
of  life  remain,  with  death  final.  The  wage-earner  is 
swept  from  the  class  of  hopeful,  independent  citizens 
into  that  of  the  helpless  poor. 

As  to  the  population  problem,  Raymond  Pearl  has 
studied  the  ratio  between  births  and  deaths  in  France, 
Prussia,  Bavaria,  and  England  and  Wales  from  1913 
to  1920 1T  and  finds  that,  in  general,  the  birth  ratios 
rose  during  the  war — in  England  to  the  100  per  cent 
mark — and  that  immediately  after  the  war  was  over 
the  death-birth  ratio  began  to  drop  rapidly  in  all  coun- 
tries. Vienna  suffered  perhaps  more  than  any  other 
city  but  made  the  best  recovery,  showing  how  promptly 
the  growth  of  population  tends  to  regulate  itself  back 
toward  the  normal  after  even  so  great  a  disturbance. 
Thus  the  war,  which  was  the  greatest  depopulator  since 
the  epidemic  of  the  Middle  Ages,  caused  "only  a 
momentary  hesitation  in  the  steady  onward  march  of 
population  growth."  If  we  take  any  given  land 
area  of  fixed  limits,  there  must  necessarily  be  an  upper 
limit  to  the  number  of  people  it  can  support,  but  this 
limit  will  be  approached  asymtotically  and  the  most  rapid 
rise  will  be  midway  between  the  upper  and  lower  limit, 
namely,  at  that  point  where  half  the  possible  resources 
of  subsistence  have  been  drawn  upon  and  utilized.  The 
statistician  must  approach  this  problem  as  the  astrono- 
mer does  in  calculating  the  complete  orbit  of  a  comet, 
that  is,  he  must  construct  his  curve  from  a  limited  num- 
ber of  specific  data.  If  we  study  the  curve  of  growth 
of  population  in  this  country,  we  find  that  we  have  long 
since  passed  the  most  rapid  rate  of  increase.  If  we 
compare  this  with  that  of  France,  which  is  an  old  coun- 
try and  much  nearer  the  upper  limit  than  ours,  which 
started  near  the  lower  asymtote  only  a  century  and  a 

""The  Biology  of  Death,"  Sci.  Mo.,  March-Sept.,  1921,  incl. 

166 


STATISTICS  OF  OLD  AGE  AND  ITS  CARE 

half  ago;  or  compare  it  with  that  of  Serbia,  which  is 
intermediate,  all  the  statistics  available  conform  with 
singular  accuracy  to  the  theoretic  curve. 

Professor  Pearl  concludes  that  this  country  has 
passed  the  point  of  most  rapid  increase,  that  this  rate 
began  to  decline  about  April  i,  1914,  when  our  popula- 
tion was  98,637,000,  and  that  our  upper  limit  will  be 
reached  about  the  year  2100,  when  the  population  will 
be  197,274,000  or  nearly  double  what  it  is  now,  with 
about  66  persons  per  square  mile.  Our  population  will 
be  then  far  less  dense  than  in  many  other  countries,  but 
the  latter  are  not  self-supporting.  He  even  estimates 
how  many  calories,  vegetable  and  animal,  each  in- 
dividual will  require  daily  and  compares  this  with  the 
agricultural  possibilities  of  the  future.  Such  considera- 
tions lead  him  to  stress  the  importance  of  birth  control. 
This  had  long  been  practiced  in  France  before  the  war, 
where  the  birth-  and  death-rate  nearly  balanced,  so  that 
industrial  development  simply  raised  the  standard  of 
living.  Germany,  on  the  other  hand,  encouraged  the 
increase  of  her  population  by  every  means  and  her 
scheme  was,  when  the  pressure  became  too  great,  to 
facilitate  the  overflow  of  her  surplus  population  else- 
where. "A  stationary  population  where  birth-rate  and 
death-rate  are  made  to  balance  is  necessarily  a  popula- 
tion with  a  relative  excess  of  persons  in  the  higher 
age  groups,  not  of  much  use  as  fighters,  and  a  relative 
deficiency  of  persons  in  the  lower  age  groups  where  the 
best  fighters  are.  On  the  contrary,  a  people  with  a  high 
birth-rate  has  a  population  with  an  excess  of  persons 
in  the  younger  age  groups." 

In  his  discussion  of  life  tables  Pearl  starts  with  that 
of  Glover  based  on  the  registration  area  of  the  United 
States  in  1910.  If  we  assume  an  original  hundred 
thousand  starting  together  at  birth  we  note  that  at  the 
beginning  of  the  second  year  of  life  only  88,538  survive. 

167 


SENESCENCE 

In  the  next  year  2446  drop  out;  the  year  following, 
1062.  At  forty  about  30,000  have  passed  away  and 
the  line  descends  with  increasing  rapidity  until  about 
eighty,  when  it  drops  more  slowly  till  soon  after  the 
century  mark  all  the  original  hundred  thousand  have 
passed  away.  Expectation  of  life  is  the  mean  or  average 
number  of  persons  surviving  at  a  stated  age.  Pearl's 
diagrams  show  that  the  expectation  of  life  of  those 
born  in  Breslau  in  the  seventeenth  century  was  very 
much  lower  than  that  of  an  individual  born  in  the  United 
States  in  1910,  the  difference  amounting  to  18  years. 
At  the  age  of  ten  it  has  sunk  to  12;  at  twenty,  to  10 
years;  at  fifty,  to  4.  But  the  individual  of  eighty  in 
Breslau  in  the  seventeenth  century  could  expect  to  live 
longer  than  the  individual  of  the  same  age  now  in  the 
United  States.  The  same  result  is  found  if  we  compare 
United  States  tables  now  with  those  of  England  in  the 
middle  of  the  eighteenth  century,  where  expectation 
was  also  less  before  and  greater  after  eighty.  Pearson's 
study  of  Egyptian  mummy  cases  two  thousand  years 
old  shows  that  expectation  there  was  far  lower  yet 
through  all  the  early  stages  of  life,  although  after 
seventy  those  who  survived  had  a  greatly  increased  ex- 
pectation. Thus  either  man  to-day  is  constitutionally 
fitter  to  survive  or  else  he  has  made  himself  better  con- 
ditions up  to  about  the  seventh  decade.  The  reason 
why  expectation  increased  after  that  period  is  because 
conditions  were  so  unfavorable  that  all  but  the  very 
most  rugged  succumbed  earlier  in  life  and  the  propor- 
tion of  those  who  reached  advanced  age  was  far  less 
than  now.  In  Rome,  during  the  first  three  or  four  cen- 
turies of  the  Christian  era,  the  expectation  was  less  yet 
until  nearly  sixty,  after  which  it  rose,  and  it  is  signifi- 
cant that  expectation  of  life  was  far  less  under  the  con- 
ditions then  prevailing  for  women  than  for  men  at  all 
ages  of  life,  which  is  the  reverse  of  conditions  now  pre- 
168 


STATISTICS  OF  OLD  AGE  AND  ITS  CARE 

vailing.  In  the  Roman  provinces,  however,  expectation 
was  greater  than  in  the  Eternal  City.  In  the  Roman- 
African  population,  although  there  was  greater  mor- 
tality to  about  forty,  expectation  of  life  was  superior 
after  that  age  in  the  early  part  of  the  Christian  era  to 
what  it  now  is. 

In  considering  life  tables  that  give  the  number  <5f 
deaths  occurring  at  each  age,  which  give  an  S-shaped 
curve  falling  very  rapidly  before  the  end  of  the  second 
year  and  reaching  its  highest  subsequent  point  at 
seventy,  Karl  Pearson  finds  in  this  S-shaped  curve  five 
components  which  he  typifies  as  five  Deaths  shooting 
with  different  weapons  and  with  differing  precision  as 
the  procession  of  human  beings  crosses  the  Bridge  of 
Life.  The  first  Death  is  a  marksman  of  deadly  aim 
and  unremitting  diligence  who  kills  before  as  well  as 
after  birth.  The  second,  who  aims  at  childhood,  has  a 
very  concentrated  fire.  The  third,  who  shoots  at  youth, 
has  not  a  very  deadly  or  accurate  weapon  but  one  rather 
to  be  compared  with  a  bow  and  arrow.  The  fire  of  the 
fourth  marksman  is  slow,  scattered,  and  not  very 
destructive,  as  if  from  an  old-fashioned  blunderbus. 
The  last  Death  plies  the  rifle,  which  none  escape.  Pearl 
justly  criticises  this  conception  because  "no  analysis  of 
the  deaths  into  natural  divisions  by  causes  or  otherwise 
has  yet  been  made  such  that  the  totals  in  the  various 
groups  would  conform  to  these  frequency  curves."  Thus 
he  holds  that  Pearson's  concept  of  the  five  deaths  does 
not  represent  any  biological  reality  but  only  demon- 
strates, as  any  other  equally  successful  curve  would  do, 
that  deaths  do  not  occur  chaotically  but  instead  "in  a 
regular  manner  capable  of  representation  by  mathemat- 
ical function  in  respect  of  age." 


169 


SENESCENCE 

II 

Let  us  glance  briefly  at  the  public  and  private  pro- 
visions in  different  lands  for  the  care  of  the  aged,  an- 
other large  topic  with  a  literature  of  its  own.  Here, 
too,  we  find  great  diversity  of  method  and  theory  which 
it  would  be  premature  to  attempt  to  harmonize.  Indeed, 
so  limited  is  our  present  knowledge  of  old  age  that  the 
available  data  here  also  open  rather  than  close  most 
of  the  great  questions  about  it,  although  we  do  seem  to 
be  at  the  beginning  of  a  new  era  regarding  this  stage 
of  life.  If  on  the  one  hand,  the  length  of  life  is  increas- 
ing, as  we  have  seen,  on  the  other  the  intensity  of 
modern  life  and  industry  is  steadily  reducing  the  age 
of  maximal  efficiency  so  that  we  feel  the  handicap  of 
years  earlier  in  life  than  formerly.  The  pressure  of 
the  advancing  upon  the  retiring  generation  is  ever-grow- 
ing and  if  the  manual  laborer  lives  longer,  he  feels  the 
impairment  of  age  sooner.  In  fact,  society  is  coming 
to  a  clearer  realization,  on  the  one  hand,  that  youth 
must  be  served  and  conserved  and,  on  the  other,  is  just 
beginning  to  see  that  the  same  is  true  of  old  age. 

Not  only  is  the  average  length  of  human  life  increas- 
ing as  civilization  advances  but  so  is  the  relative  and 
absolute  number  of  old  people.  Although  under  the 
harder  conditions  that  once  prevailed  those  who  reached 
advanced  years  did  so  by  inherent  energy  of  constitu- 
tion as  the  choicest  products  of  natural  selection  (even 
though  relatively  fewer  in  numbers),  it  is  fortunate  that 
those  who  now  attain  60,  70,  80,  etc.,  are  on  the  average 
far  more  comfortable,  as  well  as  more  numerous  than 
ever  before.  Not  only  is  eyesight  conserved,  loss  of 
teeth  made  good,  and  many  of  the  ailments  of  the  aged 
mitigated  by  modern  medicine  and  hygiene,  but  by 
homes,  pensions,  etc.,  their  lot  is  made  far  easier. 

Youth  tends  to  live  in  and  for  the  present  and  middle 
170 


STATISTICS  OF  OLD  AGE  AND  ITS  CARE 

life  is  too  absorbing;  while  the  decrepitude  of  old  age 
seems  so  remote  and  its  attainment  so  uncertain  that  the 
masses  of  mankind  are  still  far  too  improvident  of  the 
future.  It  is  somewhat  as  if  our  race  had  developed 
in  tropical  abundance  where  there  was  little  need  of 
providing  food,  clothing,  and  shelter,  and  had  not  ad- 
justed even  to  a  more  northern  climate,  still  less  to  the 
complexities  of  modern  civilization  and  least  of  all  to 
the  increased  chance  of  attaining  old  age  with  its  in- 
firmities. Still,  great  progress  has  been  made  in  fore- 
sight and  futures  play  an  ever  greater  role  in  human 
calculations.  The  impulse  to  accumulate  possessions 
itself  always  has  a  protensive  factor  and  we  cannot 
amass  property  without  thinking  of  its  safety  and  its 
use,  and  so  we  lay  by,  insure  and  bequeath. 

Nevertheless,  under  the  conditions  of  life  in  the 
modern  city,  and  especially  since  the  Industrial  Revolu- 
tion and  the  employment  of  masses  of  women  and  men 
at  wages  that  always  tend  to  gravitate  toward  a  mini- 
mum, it  is  impossible  for  many  to  save  and  also  to  rear 
families,  while  intemperance  and  vice  always  furnish 
their  quota  to  the  classes  that  outlive  their  serviceable 
years  in  dire  poverty  and,  as  old  age  advances,  become 
increasingly  dependent  not  only  for  subsistence  but  also 
for  personal  care.  There  are  still  a  few  students  of 
the  social  and  economic  questions  here  involved  who 
urge  that  all  the  aged,  even  the  latter  group,  should,  if 
possible,  be  cared  for  in  their  own  homes  by  their  chil- 
dren and  grandchildren  and  that  to  remove  them  to 
institutions,  public  or  private,  not  only  robs  them  of 
interest  in  life  but  weakens  filial  piety  and  is  detrimental 
to  the  interests  of  the  family  and  to  the  instincts  upon 
which  it  rests.  They  urge  that  all  children  owe  to  all 
parents  this  return  for  the  care  that  was  bestowed  on 
them  during  their  early,  helpless  years  and  that  such 
ministrations  are  essential  for  a  true  and  complete  home, 

171 


SENESCENCE 

etc.  But  even  if  we  grant  all  this,  there  still  remain 
the  childless  old  and  poor  who  are  alone  in  the  world. 
There  are  also  the  vicious,  toward  whom  their  children, 
with  too  much  reason,  feel  that  they  owe  nothing,  that 
their  own  very  existence  was  due  to  the  accidents  of 
passion,  and  that  they  were  not  only  unwelcome  guests 
but  were  made  the  victims  of  cruelty,  want,  etc.  Then 
there  are  the  sick  who  cannot  be  properly  cared  for  at 
home  and  each  additional  mouth  always  means  less  food 
for  all  the  rest. 

The  old  most  of  all  need  personal  provision  and  suffer 
most  from  mass  treatment,  for  they  are  not  a  class  but 
are  hyperindividualized.  Not  only  do  some  become  old 
while  they  are  yet  young  in  years,  and  vice  versa,  but 
there  is  the  greatest  diversity  in  food,  regimen,  and  in 
most  bodily  and  psychic  needs.  To  say  nothing  of  dis- 
position, diathesis,  or  temperament,  the  old  often  de- 
velop what  seem  to  others  senseless  idiosyncrasies  that 
are  really  expressive  of  essential  traits  and  require  not 
only  kindly  consideration  but  careful  study.  It  is  hard 
for  them,  most  of  all  for  old  women,  to  be  deprived  of 
contact  with  the  young  and  to  be  confined  to  intercourse 
with  only  those  of  their  own  generation.  It  is  also  hard 
on  them  to  be  denied  the  privilege  of  privacy  at  will, 
of  having  certain  things  all  their  own,  with  a  secure 
place  accessible  to  them  alone  in  which  to  keep  them. 
For  myself  I  am  convinced  that  the  so-called  moroseness 
of  old  age  is  largely  due  to  the  inconsiderate  treatment 
it  receives.  Its  real  instinct  is  to  serve  no  less  than  to 
conserve.  Even  in  the  best  appointed  homes  for  the 
aged  that  I  have  visited  the  great  need  seems  to  me  to 
be  occupation  with  things  felt  to  be  useful  and  individual 
exemptions  from  rigid  rules  mechanically  enforced  for 
all.  All  have  their  own  tastes,  aptitudes,  habits,  as  well 
as  mementos  and  keepsakes,  which  should  always  be 
respected,  and  every  possible  facility  should  be  given 

172 


STATISTICS  OF  OLD  AGE  AND  ITS  CARE 

not  only  for  visits  and  correspondence  but  for  current 
reading  in  order  to  maintain  a  larger  surface  of  contact 
with  the  world  without.  The  old  thus  constitute,  in  a 
sense,  a  privileged  and  even  a  new  "leisure  class,"  which 
Veblen  omitted  to  characterize.  The  very  fact  that  they 
have  survived  means  that  they  have  borne  the  burden 
and  heat  of  life's  trying  day  better  than  those  who  have 
died.  In  a  large  over-all  sense,  thus,  they  survived  be- 
cause they  were  the  fittest  and  even  though  they  may 
have  wrought  solely  with  an  eye  to  their  own  personal 
benefit  they  have,  nevertheless,  helped  on  the  world's 
work.  Our  streets,  buildings,  machines,  farms,  mines, 
goods,  produce,  means  of  transportation — all  these  are, 
in  a  sense,  the  bequest  of  vanished  and  retiring  to  future 
generations,  and  even  whatever  stamina  their  children 
have  is  more  or  less  due  to  their  virtue,  while  their  very 
longevity  is  perhaps  the  best  of  all  they  have  transmitted 
to  their  offspring  for,  as  A.  G.  Bell  has  shown,  fecundity 
and  long  life  go  together. 

Again,  as  the  young  and  middle-aged  most  often  show 
the  energy  that  impels  to  migrations,  it  is  often  inferred 
that  newly  settled  lands  contain  the  lowest  percentages 
of  old  people.  This,  however,  seems  to  be  true  only  for 
a  very  limited  period  and  indeed  the  reverse  may  soon 
come  to  be  the  case,  for  the  very  vigor  that  impels  the 
emigrant  is  a  trait  of  those  who  will  also  live  long; 
whence  it  often  comes  that  after  a  few  decades  new 
territories  have  relatively  more  aged  people  than  are 
found  in  older  communities  from  which  the  more  viable 
have  emigrated  and  the  less  viable  been  eliminated  by 
death.  This  is,  on  the  whole,  fortunate,  because  the 
wisdom  that  only  years  bring  acts  like  a  balance  wheel 
to  regulate  the  impulsions  of  youth,  which  always  need 
to  be  more  or  less  controlled.  Thus,  in  our  Western 
communities  we  often  observe,  along  with  the  most 
advanced  ultra-modern  steps  in  material  progress  and  the 

173 


SENESCENCE 

newest  political  devices,  a  certain  conservatism  in  social 
mores,  creeds,  etc.,  which  show  not  only  a  stagnation 
but  a  regression  of  culture  that  is  typical  of  progressive 
senescence  and  its  psychic  retardation. 

We  do  little  to  fit  for  old  age  and  so  come  to  it 
unprepared  and  uninformed.  The  senses  fail,  but 
usually  so  gradually  that  we  rarely  realize  the  full  extent 
of  our  loss ;  at  any  rate,  we  have  time  to  become  adjusted 
and  perhaps  reconciled  to  it.  The  muscles  very  gradually 
atrophy,  so  that  all  efferent  energy  declines  and  we  can 
do  ever  less.  Indeed,  in  a  new  and  quite  scientific 
fashion  we  can  speak  of  old  age  as  the  "great  fatigue," 
for  Hodge,  Dolley,  and  Richardson  and  Orr  have  shown 
that  the  changes  in  brain  cells  are  almost  identical  in 
both.  Loss  of  memory  for  recent  events  disorients  the 
old  from  their  environment.  They  forget  names  and 
their  vocabulary  contracts  as  the  brain  shrinks.  The 
mental  pace  slows  down.  Their  feelings  and  emotions 
are  less  intense,  while  control  over  them  is  often 
diminished.  The  friends  of  their  youth  are  dead ;  their 
authority  is  gone;  they  are  not  consulted  where  once 
they  had  everything  to  say.  And  so  they  come  at  last 
by  slow  degrees  to  realize  that  they  belong  to  a  genera- 
tion that  is  passed  and  the  little  world  about  them  of 
which  they  were  once  so  vital  a  part  is  neglecting  if  not 
actually  crowding  them  aside.  If  they  come  to  see  that 
things  go  on  very  well  without  them,  both  they  and  their 
environment  are  fortunate;  but  alas!  for  both  if  they 
gravitate  toward  the  conviction  that  as  they  withdraw 
all  goes  wrong. 

Nearly  every  civilized  country  to-day  makes  some  pro- 
vision for  the  aged  poor.  While  they  are  often  cared 
for  along  with  the  infirm  and  sick  in  hospitals,  or  with 
paupers  in  poor-  and  workhouses,  or  allowed  to  beg  on 
the  street,  etc.,  there  are  now  many  charitable  funds 
and  pensions,  public  and  private,  provided  especially  for 

174 


STATISTICS  OF  OLD  AGE  AND  ITS  CARE 

the  aged.  Most  funds  for  all  the  dependent  classes  can 
also  be  used  for  their  benefit  at  home  or  in  institutions ; 
and  social  and  philanthropic  work,  where  it  exists,  is 
always  ready  to  consider  helpless  age,  which  has  its  own, 
appeal  to  sympathy  and  benevolence.  The  number  of 
such  cases  is  almost  everywhere  increasing  and  so  are 
the  provisions  for  them.  As  charity  has  always  been 
praised  as  a  virtue,  it  is  now  becoming  also  a  science, 
and  the  peculiar  nature  and  needs  of  old  age  are  being 
better  understood,  although  there  is  yet  very  much  to 
be  done  in  studying  this  stage  of  life  which  has  in  the 
past  been  so  neglected  and  misunderstood.  We  are  now 
far  more  ignorant  of  senescence  than  of  adolescence, 
childhood,  or  middle  age,  but  it  is  quite  as  unique,  on 
the  whole,  and  more  apart  than  any  of  these  other 
periods.  There  is  a  sense,  too,  in  which  those  in  each 
stage  of  life  know  least  of  it.  The  child  knows  little 
of  childhood,  which  had  to  be  discovered  in  this  "cen- 
tury of  the  child."  The  second  childhood  of  old  age 
often  knows  itself  only  little  better.  The  child  cannot, 
the  old  will  not,  realize  their  age  for  what  it  is  and  what 
it  means. 

Our  conspectus  is  as  follows: 

The  first  German  Old  Age  and  Invalidity  Insurance 
Law  dates  from  1889  and  has  been  modified  since  by 
various  supplementary  acts  so  that  it  is  now  very  com- 
prehensive. These  acts  were  due  to  the  social  demo- 
cratic agitation  that  prompted  Bismarck  to  set  a  backfire 
and  thus  allay  the  discontent  of  the  working  classes. 
Old-age  insurance  has  been  obligatory  since  1889  upon 
practically  all  laborers  and  officials  paid  under  $500  a 
year  and  the  right  to  insure  voluntarily  is  extended  to 
others.  The  employer  is  held  responsible  for  the  insur- 
ance of  everyone  and  deducts  the  workman's  share  of 
the  premium  from  his  wages.  In  1910  some  14,000,000 
out  of  a  population  of  60,000,000  were  thus  insured. 

175 


SENESCENCE 

The  obligation  to  insure  begins  with  the  i/th  year  and 
a  percentage  of  the  wages  must  be  paid  for  1 200  weeks. 
The  Empire  and  the  employer  also  contribute — the 
former  a  fixed  annual  sum  of  $11.90.  There  are  five 
wage  classes  and  a  special  postal  service  with  insurance 
stamps.  It  is,  however,  impossible  to  obtain  from  Ger- 
man reports  much  data  for  old  age  alone,  which  is 
almost  always  classed  with  invalidity  and  often  with 
accident,  sickness,  etc.  As  in  every  country,  there  was 
at  first  much  discussion  whether  such  social  insurance 
should  be  compulsory  or  voluntary,  contributory  or  non- 
contributory,  universal  or  partial,  etc.,  and  different 
countries  and  agencies  have  decided  these  questions  dif- 
ferently. 

Austria  since  1906  had  a  limited  system  of  old  age 
insurance  for  certain  salaried  employees  of  the  middle 
class.  But  a  sweeping  change  in  the  bill  in  1908  was 
intended  to  include  nearly  10,000,000  of  the  population. 
Old-age  pensions  could  be  paid  at  65  to  those  insured 
for  a  period  of  thirty  years.  The  scheme  was  worked 
out  in  very  great  detail  but,  as  in  other  German  lands, 
was  a  distinctly  political  measure  provoked  in  Austria 
by  the  Socialists,  who,  as  elsewhere,  at  first  hesitated 
to  adopt  a  measure  that  gave  the  Government,  to  which 
they  had  been  opposed,  the  prestige  of  having  realized 
so  many  of  their  own  ideas  by  these  measures.  The 
movement  soon  won  many  supporters,  however,  from 
their  ranks.  As  a  political  coup  it  was  a  great  success 
and  most  Socialists  could  find  no  alternative  but  to 
accept  it,  at  least  in  principle,  although  criticism  of  the 
small  and  inadequate  funds  received  by  the  pensioners 
is  common. 

H.  J.  Hoarc1'  best  describes  the  British  Old  Age 
Pension  Acts  1908-1911,  the  scheme  of  which  is  as  fol- 

"Old  Age  Pensions:  Their  actual  working  results  in  the  United  King- 
dom, London,  1915,  196  pp. 

I76 


STATISTICS  OF  OLD  AGE  AND  ITS  CARE 

lows :  Both  sexes,  married  or  single,  over  70,  of  British 
nationality,  who  for  12  years  out  of  the  last  20  were 
residents,  and  whose  yearly  income  does  not  exceed  31 
pounds  and  10  shillings,  are  eligible  for  pensions.  They 
make  no  contributions,  the  money  coming  from  the 
state.  The  scheme  is  worked  jointly  by  the  Civil  Service 
and  local  authorities;  and  only  inmates  of  workhouses, 
asylums,  inebriates'  homes,  prisons,  and  those  who  have 
habitually  failed  to  work  are  disqualified.  The  pension 
cannot  be  charged  or  assigned  and  if  the  pensioner  is 
bankrupt,  the  pension  cannot  pass  to  a  trustee  or 
creditor.  The  receipt  of  such  a  pension  deprives  of  no 
franchise  or  privilege  and  subjects  to  no  disability,  as 
is  the  case  with  those  who  accept  the  poor  rates.  In 
1913,  363,811  men  and  604,110  women  were  pensioners, 
62.5  per  cent  of  all  being  women.  Where  the  yearly 
means  of  the  pensioner  does  not  exceed  21  pounds,  he 
or  she  receives  5  shillings  a  week;  if  between  21  and  23 
pounds  I2s.  6d.,  4  shillings  a  week;  and  so  on  through 
6  classes,  those  whose  income  is  between  28  pounds  7s. 
6d.  and  31  pounds  us.  receiving  one  shilling  a  week. 
As  a  matter  of  fact,  however,  94  per  cent  of  the  pensions 
are  at  the  full  rate.  The  expense  of  administering  this 
system  is  less  than  half  of  one  per  cent  of  the  total 
amount  of  pensions. 

In  1920,  920,198  old  men  and  women  received  pen- 
sions.19 The  chief  grievances  the  old  find  against  this" 
system  are:  (i)  that  it  does  not  begin  at  65;  and 
especially  (2)  that  it  is  so  little,  for,  of  course,  no  one 
can  begin  to  exist  to-day  on  55.  a  week.  Both  these 
limitations  cause  very  acute  complaint  among  the  benefi- 
ciaries themselves. 

Practically  every  other  European  country  has  adopted 


"  Edith  Sellers,  "From  the  Old  Age  Pensioners'  Standpoint,"  Nineteenth 
Century,  Jan.,  1920. 

177 


SENESCENCE 

some  form  of  old  age  relief.20  Denmark  in  1891  put 
in  operation  a  scheme  of  outdoor  relief  for  the  deserv- 
ing aged  poor.  This,  too,  was  done  as  a  political  move 
to  reconcile  radicals  and  liberals.  Its  pensionable  age 
of  60  years  is,  I  believe,  the  lowest  anywhere  found. 
The  amount  of  the  dotation  is  not  fixed;  local  authorities 
decide  it  in  each  individual  case.  It  must  be,  however, 
"sufficient  for  support."  Communes  and  the  state  bear 
the  expense  equally. 

Belgium's  Old  Age  Pension  Act  of  1900  is  a  com- 
prehensive scheme  of  assisted  insurance  and  non-con- 
tributory pensions.  It  aims,  first,  to  encourage  workers 
to  save ;  and,  second,  to  help  the  aged  by  special  grants. 
It  has  its  own  superannuation  fund  bank.  Annuities 
rarely  exceed  $72  and  are  payable  at  65.  The  pensions 
are  graded  according  to  the  age  of  the  insured,  and  at 
last  accounts  nearly  a  million,  or  one-eighth  of  the 
population,  benefited. 

France  has  a  voluntary,  contributory  old-age  insur- 
ance system  administered  through  a  national  bank  with 
a  state  guarantee,  which  goes  back  to  1850  but  has  been 
much  perfected  by  subsequent  legislation.  It  differs 
only  in  detail  from  the  Belgian  scheme.  The  amount 
of  the  insurance  is  not  less  than  $12  or  more  than  $48 
a  year  and  may  be  given  in  money,  hospital  service, 
or  provisions.  The  permissible  pension  age  in  France 
is  now  65. 

Since  1898  Italy  has  had  a  system  of  voluntary,  con- 
tributory insurance,  subsidized  by  the  state,  which  pro- 
vides annuities  after  the  age  of  60  if  the  recipient  has 
paid  his  dues  for  25  years. 

The  chief  British  colonies  have  adopted  very  wise 
and  comprehensive  systems  of  old  age  pensions.  New 
Zealand  provides  a  maximum  pension  of  $130  a  year 

"  Report  of  the  Massachusetts  Commission  on  Old  Age  Pensions,  An- 
nuities and  Insurance,  Jan.,  1910,  409  pp. 

178 


STATISTICS  OF  OLD  AGE  AND  ITS  CARE 

in  monthly  installments  to  those  of  65  who  are  "of  good 
moral  character  and  have  led  a  sober,  reputable  life." 
Each  pension  is  only  granted  for  a  year  but  is  renew- 
able upon  request. 

The  Australian  colonies,  one  after  another,  enacted 
old-age  pension  laws  near  the  close  of  the  first  decade 
of  the  present  century.  These  grants  are  made  "as  a 
right  and  not  as  a  charity,"  and  the  commissioner  de- 
termines the  amount  of  the  pension  within  limits  accord- 
ing to  what  he  deems  the  needs  of  each  case.  A  special 
investigation  is  made  for  each  applicant. 

The  Canadian  system  (1908)  differs  widely  from  that 
of  Australia.  Its  preamble  states  that  it  is  to  promote 
thrift  and  to  encourage  individual  provisions  for  old 
age.  The  Minister  of  the  Interior  may  contract  with 
any  Canadian  for  the  sale  of  an  annuity,  between  the 
limits  of  $50  and  $600,  although  none  can  be  payable 
under  the  age  of  55.  If  the  purchaser  of  an  annuity 
dies  before  it  becomes  payable,  all  of  it  with  compound 
interest  is  returned  to  his  heirs.  As  this  system  is  volun- 
tary, very  vigorous  efforts  were  made  by  organizers  and 
lecturers  to  bring  it  to  the  attention  of,  and  make  it 
attractive  to,  the  people,  and  these  thrift  campaigns  have 
been  highly  educative. 

Francis  A.  Carman 21  tells  us  that  the  Canadian 
scheme,  like  most  others,  was  to  alleviate  the  universal 
dread  of  the  poorhouse.  It  was  adopted  to  circumvent 
the  growing  demand  for  the  support  of  old  age  by  the 
Government.  Its  unique  features  are:  no  forfeiture 
in  case  payments  are  interrupted  or  ceased,  and  the 
annuities  cannot  be  mortgaged,  seized  for  debt,  or  antic- 
ipated. Admirable  as  is  the  scheme,  there  have  been 
less  than  two  thousand  to  enjoy  its  full  benefits.  It 
has  not  reached  the  day  laborer  but,  for  the  most  part, 
only  clerks  and  teachers. 

M  "Canadian  Government  Annuities,"  Polit.  Sci.  Quar.,  1915,  p.  425  et  seq. 
179 


SENESCENCE 

The  United  States  is  the  only  nation  that  has  no  retir- 
ing system  or  provision  for  old  age,  even  for  its 
employees,  save  for  soldiers  and  for  judges  of  the 
Supreme  Court,  who  may  retire  after  ten  years  of  ser- 
vice or  on  having  attained  the  age  of  75  on  full  salaries. 
Military  pensions  go  back  nearly  to  the  Revolutionary 
War.  There  has  been  much  legislation  since.  In  1908 
there  were  no  less  than  951,687  pensioners  who  received 
more  than  $153,000,000,  the  survivors  of  the  Civil  War 
constituting  65  per  cent  of  all.  There  are  also  retire- 
ment pensions  for  officers  and  enlisted  men  in  the 
regular  Army.  Officers  at  the  age  of  64  must  be  retired, 
with  no  option,  on  three-fourths  pay. 

No  American  state  has  established  any  system  of  old 
age  pensions,  although  many  Southern  states  provide 
for  Confederate  veterans ;  but  many  states  or  cities  have 
provided  for  firemen,  policemen,  teachers,  and  certain 
other  public  employees. 

Mabel  L.  Nassau  22  personally  studied  the  history  of 
one  hundred  poor  old  people  in  the  very  heart  of  New 
York  city  and  observed  them  as  a  neighborhood  study, 
dividing  her  cases  into  those  wholly  or  partly  self-sup- 
porting, and  wholly  or  partly  dependent  upon  their 
families  or  upon  charity.  She  stresses  the  fact  so 
abundantly  illustrated  that  it  was  impossible  for  most 
of  these  destitute  individuals  to  put  by  money  for  their 
old  age.  The  lives  of  most  of  them  had  been  spent  in 
the  direst  poverty,  with  low  wages,  almost  no  industrial 
training,  long  intervals  of  non-employment,  illness  often 
due  to  malnutrition,  not  to  mention  the  really  not  very 
common  effects  of  drink  and  vice.  They  often  have 
little  experience  in  buying  and  have  all  their  lives  been 
cheated  and  imposed  on.  Very  many  have  the  finest 
sensibilities,  although  this  is  often  not  suspected  because 

*  Old  Age  Poverty  in  Greenwich  Village,  1915,  105  pp. 

180 


STATISTICS  OF  OLD  AGE  AND  ITS  CARE 

they  lack  education  to  express  their  feelings.  In  this 
stratum  of  society,  although  the  young  are  often  under- 
fed and  the  middle  aged  overworked,  the  old  have  the 
hardest  time.  The  burden  of  the  aged  falls  hardest 
upon  the  children,  who  must  get  a  work  certificate  as 
soon  as  possible  to  help  feed  their  grandparents.  The 
old  generally  have  a  horror  of  going  to  an  institution; 
and  many  of  these  are  so  managed  as  to  justify  this 
dread,  separating  married  couples,  imposing  senseless 
rules,  providing  poor  food  and  perhaps  no  recreation, 
and  greatly  restricting  liberties,  so  that  life  is  hopelessly 
monotonous,  with  no  incentive  for  personal  effort.  The 
inmates  generally  have  no  private  place,  even  a  locked 
drawer,  to  keep  personal  effects,  so  that  they  can  really 
own  nothing.  Mills'  hotels  seem  nearer  the  ideal.  Many 
systems  to  help  the  old  involve  conditions  that  amount 
to  dominating  their  lives.  Old  age  is  really  a  risk  to 
which  all  are  liable  and  self-respect  and  thrift  require 
us  to  give  more  attention  to  it.  It  should  be  no  more 
of  a  disgrace  to  accept  a  pension  for  old  age  than  for 
service  in  war.  State  aid  assumes  that  the  old  have 
added  to  the  health  and  power  of  the  state  by  their  work, 
and  recognizes  this. 

The  Baltimore  and  Ohio  Railroad  established  the  first 
pension  system  in  this  industry  in  1884  and  in  the  last 
two  decades  many  corporations,  mercantile  houses, 
banks,  etc.,  have  established  such  systems.  The  above 
Massachusetts  Report  supplies  many  details  of  fifty  of 
these  systems.  In  the  modern  business  world  the  prob- 
lem of  dealing  with  aged  employees  is  increasingly  diffi- 
cult. The  use  of  machiner,,  specialization,  and  the 
modern  efficiency  ideals  have  made  it  increasingly  hard 
for  the  old  to  keep  the  pace  and  the  universal  demand 
now  is  for  younger  men,  so  that  many  firms  actually 
refuse  new  men  over  thirty-five.  Men  wear  out  fast. 
To  carry  the  incapacitated  on  their  payroll  is  not  only 

181 


SENESCENCE 

not  economic  but  discouraging  to  the  working  force  and 
it  is  not  humane  to  turn  them  adrift.  The  general 
scheme  adopted  in  view  of  these  facts  is  either  voluntary 
or  compulsory  retirement  at  a  certain  age,  with  weekly 
or  monthly  allowances,  the  amount  of  which  depends 
upon  the  length  of  service  and  the  wage,  the  expense 
of  the  system  being  borne  by  the  employer  with  help 
from  the  employee.  The  economic  motives,  of  course, 
have  been  more  potent  than  the  humanitarian.  It  has 
been  good  business  policy,  for  it  not  only  prevents  the 
waste  of  using  worn-out  men  but  it  stimulates  loyalty 
on  the  part  of  the  working  force.  Voluntary  retirement 
is  generally  at  60  and  compulsory  at  70,  but  this  varies 
greatly,  as  does  the  time  of  service  upon  which  aid  is 
conditioned,  which  is  usually  from  10  to  30  years.  Often 
the  allowance  is  one  per  cent  of  the  average  wage  during 
the  last  10  years;  for  example,  an  employee  who  has 
worked  40  years  at  an  average  wage  of  $50  a  month 
would  receive  $20.  The  system  is  generally  administered 
by  a  board  composed  of  both  employers  and  employees. 
Some  firms  expressly  repudiate  all  contractual  rights. 

Inquiry  was  made  in  Massachusetts  of  over  a  thou- 
sand employers  but  only  three  hundred  and  sixty-two 
replies  were  received ;  and  of  these  only  four  had  regu- 
lar systems  of  retirement  pensions,  although  often 
special  grants  were  made.  This  was  a  very  delicate 
inquiry  and  the  excuses  for  the  absence  of  any  pension 
system  usually  were  that  the  business  was  itself  too 
insecure  or  that  the  working  force  was  too  unstable  and 
transitory. 

Many  fraternal  organizations  have  old-age  benefits. 
But  the  early  history  of  this  movement  is  strewn  with 
financial  wrecks,  because  the  rates  were  too  low  and 
philanthropic  impulses  outweighed  scientific  methods. 
Very  few  of  these  organizations  had  anything  that  can 

182 


STATISTICS  OF  OLD  AGE  AND  ITS  CARE 

be  called  old-age  pensions  or  benefits,  although  some  of 
them  are  now  coming  to  do  so. 

A  few  trade  unions  have  superannuation  features, 
particularly  the  International  Typographical  Union  and 
the  Amalgamated  Societies  of  Engineers,  also  carpen- 
ters and  joiners.  But  here,  again,  benefits  are  small. 

Industrial  insurance  is  really  life  insurance  for  small 
amounts  and  is  designed  for  wage  earners,  with  pre- 
miums payable  weekly,  collected  from  homes  by  agents, 
and  the  premiums  graded  in  multiples  of  five  cents. 
This  method  really  began  in  London  in  1854  and  despite 
initial  errors  the  movement  has  grown  rapidly,  so  that 
there  are  now  many  millions  of  industrial  policies  in. 
force  in  that  country.  But  only  very  recently  have  they 
attempted  specific  insurance  against  old  age.  Here  the 
premiums  usually  cease  at  65  and  the  annuity  is  rarely 
over  $100. 

The  Krupp  Company  at  Essen  had,  before  the  war, 
one  of  the  most  elaborate  systems  of  age  insurance, 
conducted  solely  for  the  benefit  of  the  employees  and 
to  which  the  Company  contributed  largely.  The  scheme 
is  complex  and  was  often  interpellated  in  the  Reichstag, 
especially  on  the  point  of  forfeiture  of  payments  of 
members  who  leave  the  firm.  Each  workman  pays  2% 
per  cent,  which  is  deducted  from  his  wages.  The 
system  is  chiefly  for  those  who  do  not  earn  over  2000 
marks  a  year.  Retirement  is  permissible  after  20  years 
of  service  or  on  reaching  the  age  of  65.  After  20  years 
the  workman  receives  40  per  cent  of  his  earnings,  in- 
creasing yearly  by  I  %  per  cent  up  to  a  maximum,  after 
44  years,  of  75  per  cent.  If  he  dies,  his  widow  receives 
half  his  pension,  and  each  child  10  per  cent.  If  the 
mother  dies,  each  child  receives  15  per  cent.  The  total 
membership  varies  from  30,000  to  40,000,  and  the 
average  pension  is  683  marks.  A  number  of  other  large 

183 


SENESCENCE 

German  industrial  concerns  have  adopted  certain  fea- 
tures of  this  scheme. 

Most  of  the  Friendly  Societies  of  Great  Britain  make 
provision  for  old  age  insurance  but  only  to  a  limited 
extent,  insuring  at  the  same  time  against  sickness, 
unemployment,  providing  death  benefits,  etc.  The  germ 
of  all  such  work  is  found  in  the  medieval  trade  guilds, 
and  the  necessity  of  it  was  immensely  enhanced  by  the 
development  of  the  factory  system  and  what  is  called 
the  Industrial  Revolution. 

After  20  years  of  discussion,  the  Sterling-Lehlbach 
Act,  passed  by  Congress  and  which  went  into  effect  in 
August,  1920,  provides  federal  civil-service  pensions 
for  all  classes  of  employees  upon  retirement.  It  is  con- 
tributory and  compulsory,  requiring  each  to  contribute 
2^/2  per  cent  of  their  salaries.  The  minimum  age  of 
retirement  is  65;  all  must  retire  at  70;  and  15  years  of 
service  are  required  for  eligibility  to  an  allowance,  the 
annuity  running  from  a  minimum  of  $180  after  15  years 
of  service  to  a  maximum  of  $720  after  30  years.  The 
scheme  takes  no  account  of  the  amount  of  salary  at 
the  time  of  retirement  and  certainly  $720  is  no  induce- 
ment to  a  man  receiving  $2000  to  resign. 

In  recent  years  there  has  been  a  growing  conviction 
not  only  that  the  salaries  of  teachers  must  be  increased, 
"but  some  kind  of  retiring  allowance  provided  for  all 
public  school  teachers,  if  teaching  is  to  become  a  pro- 
fession." J  These  are  provided  by  nearly  every  country 
of  Western  Europe;  and  in  1916,  32  states  in  this 
country  had  made  some  provision  for  the  retirement  of 
teachers,  most  of  them  contributory  systems  where 
teachers  insured  themselves  against  disability. 

Our  country,  however,  is  still  far  behind  others  in 


"Joseph  Swain,  "State  Pension  Systems  for  Public  School  Teachers," 
Bureau  of  Education  Bull.,  1916. 

184 


STATISTICS  OF  OLD  AGE  AND  ITS  CARE 

this  respect.24  The  first  city-school  system  to  provide 
retirement  funds  was  in  Chicago  in  1893,  followed  two 
years  later  by  a  New  Jersey  mutual-benefit  plan,  and 
there  are  now  eight  or  nine  types  of  state,  county,  and 
city  pension  systems  in  the  country.  The  peculiar  diffi- 
culty here  is  found  in  the  fact  that  one-fourth  of  our 
720,000  school  teachers  leave  teaching  every  year,  mak- 
ing the  average  term  of  service  four  years  and  causing 
185,000  new  inexperienced  teachers  to  begin  each  year. 
Thus  few  expect  to  benefit  from  such  a  system  and  so 
long  as  it  is  voluntary  it  is  utterly  inadequate.  "While 
pensions  and  tenure  help  to  secure  and  hold  good 
teachers,  they  also  make  it  possible  to  free  schools  with 
social  justice  and  dignity  from  superannuated  and  in- 
capacitated teachers.  This  is  almost  as  great  a  benefit 
as  the  others  to  the  schools,  the  children,  and  society." 

There  are  two  volumes25  which,  as  Professor  H.  S. 
Pritchett  well  says  in  an  able  article  on  pension  literature 
(Fifteenth  Annual  Report  of  the  Carnegie  Foundation, 
1920)  "mark  the  close  of  one  period  in  the  history  of 
pensions  and  the  beginning  of  a  new  scientific  one." 
The  most  difficult  question  is  the  method  of  calculating 
the  amount  of  superannuation  benefits.  If  the  basis  is 
the  flat  rate,  this  is  simple;  but  if  it  is  the  average  of 
the  salary  given  during  the  last  five  or  ten  years,  or 
during  the  whole  period  of  service,  the  difficulty  in 
determining  the  amount  of  actual  contributions  to  yield 
the  prospective  benefit  becomes  very  great.  Teachers' 
salaries  are,  especially  now,  very  unstable.  A  pension 
system  based  on  anticipated  pay  leaves  too  much  in  sus- 
pense. It  is  difficult  to  provide  pensions  on  a  subsistence 

M  "Report  on  Teachers'  Pensions,"  N.  E.  A.  Proc.,  1919,  vol.  57,  p.  145 
et  seq. 

28  See  Paul  Studensky,  Teachers'  Pension  Systems  in  the  United  States, 
New  York,  1920,  and  the  companion  volume  of  Lewis  Meriam,  entitled 
Principles  Governing  the  Retirement  of  Public  Employees,  New  York, 
1918. 

185 


SENESCENCE 

basis,  which  also  bears  some  relation  to  final  salary.  If 
the  pension  is  too  high,  there  is  temptation  to  retire  too 
early;  if  it  is  too  low,  to  retire  too  late.  Ultimately,  too, 
teachers  must  be  able  to  migrate  without  loss  or  change 
of  status  and  this  would  involve  reciprocity  between 
different  cities  and  even  states.  In  New  York,  before 
the  new  system  went  into  effect  in  1921,  there  were 
2,000  different  rates ;  and  in  Pennsylvania,  86.  The  new 
system  of  New  York,  which  developed  because  the  old 
one  had  settled  into  bankruptcy,  although  optional  for 
teachers  appointed  before  1921  is  compulsory  for  those 
appointed  after  and  the  pension  is  to  consist  of  half  the 
average  salary  during  the  last  five  years;  the  payment 
is  not  to  exceed  $800  and  this  will  be  paid  after  25  years 
of  service.  The  old  view  which  held  that  the  very  word 
"pension"  suggested  a  cripple  and  real  manhood  would 
compel  everyone  to  lay  by  for  old  age,  and  which  flat- 
tered those  who  entered  their  profession  in  youth  with 
the  hope  that  in  old  age  they  "might  be  permitted  to 
sun  themselves  on  the  veranda  of  a  state  poorhouse," 
has  entirely  passed  away.  But  pensions  are  no  longer 
considered  as  a  form  of  charity  or  a  form  of  paternal- 
ism, or  even  as  a  reward  for  service.  They  only  demand 
of  the  teacher  the  same  thrift  as  do  savings  and  their 
proper  function  is  to  secure  efficiency  of  service  and  they 
should  be  regarded  "as  a  condition  of  service  just  the 
same  as  a  salary."  Most  of  even  the  best  recent  systems, 
like  that  of  the  District  of  Columbia  and  the  Y.  M.  C.  A. 
officers'  pension  plan,  which  is  just  about  to  go  into 
operation,  are  a  compromise  between  the  old  and  the 
new  ideas.  The  same  is  true  of  civil-service  pensions  in 
New  York  state  and  city. 

The  Carnegie  Foundation  for  the  Advancement  of 
Teaching  in  1920  had  a  total  fund  of  $24,628,000  and 
its  retirement  allowances  for  that  year  were  $875,514.04, 
with  allowances  then  in  force  to  555  individuals,  or  an 

1 86 


STATISTICS  OF  OLD  AGE  AND  ITS  CARE 

average  to  each  of  $i  ,568.77.  The  fund  was  originally  ad- 
ministered solely  in  the  form  of  gifts  but  the  unexpected 
number  of  applicants  made  it  necessary  to  gradually 
change  to  a  contractual  plan  involving  very  moderate 
contributions  from  the  institutions  benefited,  which  now 
include  those  of  Canada  as  well  as  of  this  country.  It 
is  one  of  the  most  wise  and  beneficent  gifts  of  the  great 
philanthropist  who  founded  it  and  its  influence  in  giving 
permanence  in  the  sense  of  security  to  active  professors 
still  efficient,  and  relieving  institutions  of  those  past  their 
usefulness  to  make  way  for  younger  men,  is  unquestion- 
ably for  good. 

The  President  of  the  Foundation  has  grappled  with 
the  whole  subject  of  industrial  pensions.  It  was  at  first 
planned  that  the  same  principles  should  be  applied  here 
as  those  in  the  more  stabilized  professions  but  this  is 
impossible  because  of  the  labor  turnover  each  year, 
which  amounts  to  100  to  200  per  cent  of  their  employees 
in  some  industrial  establishments.  It  is  one  of  the  func- 
tions of  the  pension  system  to  reduce  the  turnover  and 
to  secure  continuity  of  service  and  avoid  migrations. 
Many  systems  do  not  provide  for  the  return  of  the  em- 
ployee's contributions  in  the  cases  of  withdrawal  or  dis- 
missal, or  for  the  use  of  such  contributions  for  other 
purposes,  so  that  the  fund  accumulated  would  soon,  in 
some  cases,  run  into  millions.  It  does  not  follow,  how- 
ever, that  the  opposite  tendencies  now  manifest  to  seek 
a  solution  of  the  problem  in  a  non-contributory  scheme 
are  sound,  for  this  would  still  encounter  the  opposition 
of  labor  unions,  who  see  in  all  such  schemes  a  return 
to  feudalism  or  an  attempt  to  make  labor  stick  to  its 
job  by  the  use  of  vague  promises,  to  the  fulfillment  of 
which  the  employee  himself  contributes  in  the  long  run 
in  the  form  of  depressed  wages.  The  Metropolitan  Life 
Insurance  Company,  however,  seems  to  have  found  a 
way  out  and  has  proposed  to  "write  annuity  contracts 

187 


SENESCENCE 

maturing  at  the  age  of  65  under  which  the  pension  is 
purchased  each  year  in  small  units  representing  either 
flat  rate  or  a  percentage  of  salary.  The  employer,  the 
employee,  or  both,  make  a  contribution  each  year  toward 
the  pension  to  fall  due  on  the  retirement  of  the  em- 
ployee," who  receives  a  bond  each  year  that  assures  him 
a  pension  when  he  retires,  each  bond  being  complete  in 
itself.  This  scheme  costs  little  to  administer  and  it  meets 
the  objection  against  a  non-contributory  system,  that 
although  pensions  defer  pay  only  the  employee  who  sur- 
vives in  the  same  service  until  retirement  receives  the 
benefit  promised,  by  the  provision  that  this  bond  is  given 
each  year  and  becomes  his  property,  to  be  realized  at  a 
fixed  age  in  later  years. 

Frederick  L.  Hoffmann26  gives  us  one  of  the  sanest 
and  most  compendious  summaries  of  the  negative  views 
on  this  whole  subject.  Present  systems  have  not 
eliminated  poorhouses  or  the  pauper's  grave.  Of  the 
1,981,208  individuals  in  the  United  States  over  70,  ac- 
cording to  the  census  of  1898,  a  great  majority  would 
welcome  a  pension;  and  of  all  legislation  this  is  most 
irreversible.  On  the  contrary,  old  beneficiaries  con- 
stantly agitate  for  more.  State  pension  systems,  too,  do 
not  materially  reduce  the  cost  of  charitable  relief, 
whether  indoor  or  outdoor.  Only  in  a  last  resort  should 
the  state  attempt  to  do  what  can  be  done  by  private 
institutions  or  by  private  individual  foresight  and  noth- 
ing should  discourage  voluntary  thrift  of  any  kind. 
Where  pensions  have  caused  the  removal  of  beneficiaries 
from  asylums  or  almshouses,  the  results  have  generally 
been  unfavorable.  Pensions  are  chiefly  of  benefit  to 
those  not  within  the  scope  of  poor  law  administration 
or  private  charitable  aid.  It  is  just  this  class  which 
pensions  would  help  that  is  now  most  efficient  in 

""Problem  of  Poverty  and  Pensions  in  Old  Age,"  Amer.  J.  Soc.,  vol. 
xiv,  1908-9,  p.  282  et  seq. 

1 88 


STATISTICS  OF  OLD  AGE  AND  ITS  CARE 

helping  themselves.  If  the  family  is  at  all  kept  up  to 
its  ideal,  the  young  will  help  the  old  as  they  have  been 
helped  by  them.  This  is  not  charity  but  mutual  aid 
based  upon  mutual  obligation  for  service  rendered  and 
there  can  be  no  substitute  for  this.  It  is  this  class  that 
forms  the  backbone  of  a  nation  and  which,  by  even 
moderate  foresight,  could  provide  for  a  modest  support 
in  their  old  age.  The  billions  of  dollars  that  they  have 
invested  in  savings  banks  and  in  insurance  institutions 
of  various  kinds  show  that  they  are  not  unmindful  of 
the  future.  Legislation  is  needed  to  stamp  out  fraud- 
ulent enterprises  designed  to  attract  small  savings  on 
the  plea  of  large  returns;  therefore,  security  should  be 
the  first  consideration  in  such  investments.  The  prevail- 
ing wages  should  make  it  possible  for  the  masses  of 
wage  earners  to  provide  the  support  necessary  for  their 
old  age,  at  their  own  cost  and  in  their  own  way,  if  they 
are  given  sufficient  intelligence  and  motive  and  could 
feel  sufficient  security.  To  take  an  example,  5  per  cent 
of  a  wage  of  $900  per  annum,  or  $45,  commencing  with 
the  age  of  30  and  continuing  to  65,  would  produce  an 
annuity  of  $450.  Of  course,  the  earlier  in  life  the 
periodical  payment  begins,  the  smaller  would  be  the  an- 
nual amount  required  to  be  paid.  The  fact  is  that  parents 
who  have  done  well  by  their  children  seldom  come  to 
grief  in  their  old  age,  except  by  special  misfortune.  Noth- 
ing must  be  done  to  weaken  the  virtues  here  involved. 
The  view  that  old-age  pensions  should  be  given  as  a 
right  and  not  as  an  act  of  charity  is  one-sided,  because 
wage  workers  have  not  spent  their  lives  in  behalf  of  the 
state  but  have  sought  to  aid  themselves  in  their  own  way 
and  sold  their  services  to  the  highest  bidder.27 

*  See  Spender,  Treatise  on  State  Pensions  in  Old  Age,  London,  1892; 
G.  Drage,  The  Problems  of  the  Aged  Poor,  London,  1895,  375  pp. ;  Metcalf, 
Universal  Old  Age  Pensions,  London,  1899,  200  pp. ;  Booth,  Pauperism 
and  the  Endowments  of  Old  Age,  New  York,  1906.  For  extended  inquiries 

I89 


SENESCENCE 

L.  W.  Squier28  tells  us  that  of  the  18,000,000  wage 
earners  in  the  United  States,  about  1,250,000  reach  the 
age  of  65  in  want  and  are  not  sufficiently  supported  by 
public  or  private  charities  which,  in  round  numbers,  cost 
the  country  $250,000,000.  Of  the  2,000,000  non-fatal 
accidents  Hoffmann  estimates  per  year,  the  old,  to  be 
sure,  have  somewhat  less  than  their  share.  The  United 
States  Bureau  of  Labor  lately  estimated  that  $220,000,- 
ooo  per  annum  is  the  average  the  laborer  has  to  pay 
for  medicines  alone,  not  including  doctors*  bills,  and 
about  79  per  cent  of  those  in  almshouses  are  either 
physically  or  mentally  defective.  Our  total  pension  out- 
lay for  the  War  of  the  Revolution,  that  of  1812,  the 
Indian  wars,  Mexican,  Civil,  and  Spanish,  in  regular 
establishments  and  unclassified,  he  estimates  at  $4,230,- 
381,730.  Despite  the  world  unrest  there  are  probably 
ever  increasing  numbers  who  look  forward  to  a  quiet 
old  age,  and  we  must  depend  more  and  more  upon  incul- 
cating thrift  wherever  possible  and  encourage  all  to  earn 
more  than  a  living  wage. 

Present-day  man,  at  his  best,  is  certainly  far  below 
the  standard,  for  nowhere  among  wild  animals  do  we 
find  so  many  with  defective  teeth,  vision,  tonsils,  boweis, 
flat  foot,  etc.,  and  the  rejection  of  nearly  one-third  of 
the  drafted  men  for  physical  unfitness  was  a  most  sig- 
nificant fact.  The  trouble  is  men  will  not  take  pains  to 
prolong  life  and  still  shrink  from  medical  examinations 
at  all  ages.  Some  tell  us  that  old  people  do  so  most  of 
all,  fearing  to  know  the  truth  about  their  condition. 

This  very  cursory  sketch  must  suffice  to  show  the  in- 
creasing interest  in  and  the  growing  magnitude  of  the 
economic  problem  of  old  age.  But  before  closing  this 

see  The  Report  of  the  Royal  Commission  on  Old  Age  Pensions  by  the 
Commonwealth  of  Australia,  1006;  also,  William  Sutherland,  Old  Age 
Pensions  in  Theory  and  Practice,  London,  1907. 

"  Old  Age  Dependency  in  the  United  States,  New  York,  1912,  361  pp. 
a  masterly  book. 

190 


STATISTICS  OP  OLD  AGE  AND  ITS  CARE 

chapter  let  us  glance  at  the  efforts  of  the  new  Life  Ex- 
tension Institute  to  prolong  life  and  increase  efficiency. 
It  is  said  to  be  "five  per  cent  philanthropy,"  and  all  those 
whose  lives  are  insured  are  to  make  a  definite  effort  to 
avoid  sickness  and  defer  death.  Members  are  inspected 
gratis  and  all  others  can  be  for  a  moderate  fee.  A 
regular  system  of  examination  for  repairs  is  provided 
for,  just  as  all  manufacturers  do  for  their  machines, 
with  a  written  report  to  the  person's  family  physician. 
At  the  start  the  Postal  Life  Insurance  Company  turned 
over  to  the  new  organization  its  well  established  system 
of  examinations  for  policy-holders  and  the  Metropolitan 
Life  made  an  agreement  for  periodic  examinations.  The 
company's  conservation  policy  leads  an  impaired  man 
to  consult  a  physician  before  it  is  too  late,  and  this,  we 
are  told,  has  reduced  the  death  rate  among  those  ex- 
amined. They  plan  to  extend  this  over  the  whole  coun- 
try. Two-thirds  of  the  profits  beyond  5  per  cent  are 
to  go  toward  increasing  the  further  usefulness  of  the 
Institution.  Judge  W.  H.  Taft  is  chairman  of  the  Board 
of  Directors  while  Irving  Fisher  is  chairman  of  the 
Committee  of  One  Hundred  on  Hygiene.29 

In  the  Nation  of  January  8,  1914,  commenting  on  the 
hygienic  reference  board  of  the  Life  Extension  Institute 
the  writer  tells  us  that  they  will  even  tackle  such  prob- 
lems as  ventilation,  how  to  clothe  and  feed  the  body,  etc. 
Some  have  advocated  compulsory  annual  examinations 
for  all.  This  the  Nation  condemns.  There  is  the  danger 
of  false  diagnosis  as  to  degree  or  kind  of  defect.  An 
ailing  man  might  be  injured  by  knowing  the  seriousness 
of  his  trouble.  It  might  detract  from  the  joy  of  life 
and  to  compel  it  would  be  an  undue  invasion  of  liberty, 
for  it  is  not  like  vaccination  and  similar  measures  neces- 
sary for  all. 

"  The  Survey,  vol.  31,  1914-15,  P-  4§3. 


SENESCENCE 

Whit  the  old  need  is  an  occasional  examination  of 
sight  and  hearing,  of  respiratory,  circulatory,  digestive, 
and  perhaps  sexual  system,  each  by  an  expert,  with 
hygienic  and  therapeutic  suggestions  based  upon  these 
results.  This  the  Life  Extension  Institute  does  not  at- 
tempt to  furnish  and  it  is  perhaps  too  much  to  expect  yet. 

A  few  other  voluntary  organizations  for  the  benefit 
of  the  old  should  be  mentioned  here. 

The  "Borrowed  Time  Club"  of  Oak  Park,  Illinois, 
dates  from  the  year  1900  but  was  reorganized  in  1911, 
and  in  1920  had  294  names  on  its  roster.  It  admits  only 
those  of  seventy  years  of  age  or  more  and  has  clubrooms 
of  its  own  in  which  it  holds  weekly  meetings.  One  of 
its  most  impressive  customs  is  an  annual  meeting  de- 
voted to  the  memory  of  the  brethren  who  have  died 
during  the  year,  with  a  service  at  which  a  floral  tribute 
is  laid  upon  each  vacant  chair  placed  in  a  line  on  the 
platform  by  younger  members  of  the  families  of  the 
deceased.  Political  and  religious  questions  are  barred. 
There  are  no  fees  but  a  voluntary  offering  once  a  month, 
and  any  citizen  of  whatever  creed  or  race,  whether  rich 
or  poor,  is  eligible.  Fraternal  sympathy  and  companion- 
ship are  fostered.  There  is  music  and  a  prayer  at  most 
of  the  meetings,  illness  of  members  is  reported  on,  cur- 
rent events  discussed,  and  a  program  usually  pro- 
vided. "The  main  purpose  of  the  organization  is  to 
bring  happiness  to  others."  There  are  perhaps  a  hun- 
dred and  fifty  associate  members.  This  club  has  several 
branches,  and  others  of  similar  name  and  character  have 
been  established  in  other  cities. 

To  the  writer,  the  name  of  the  club  seems  unfortunate 
in  assuming  the  Biblical  limitation  of  life  at  three-score- 
and-ten,  as  if  we  were  incurring  indebtedness  and  living 
on  by  the  special  indulgence  of  Father  Time  if  we  sur- 
pass that  age.  Why  are  we  debtors  after  more  than 
before  this  age,  when  the  fact  is  we  are  living  on  capital 

192 


STATISTICS  OF  OLD  AGE  AND  ITS  CARE 

accumulated  or  inherited  and  in  no  sense  on  credit  ?  The 
religious  features  that  seem  to  characterize  every  pro- 
gram are  well  and  no  one  could  have  anything  but 
commendation  for  the  interest  displayed  in  sick  members 
or  in  the  annual  tributes  to  the  dead.  But  the  thanatic 
outlook  from  the  "west  window"  should  not  predominate 
and  the  discussion  of  current  events  and  interest  in  vital 
problems  should  be  kept  most  lively  to  offset  the  attitude 
of  patheticism  to  which  the  old  are  only  too  prone. 

The  Sunset  Club,  at  present  largely  composed  of 
women  over  sixty,  has  little  organization  although  it  has 
many  branches  in  various  parts  of  the  country.  Its 
purpose  is  not  only  to  have  old  people  help  and  be  helped 
by  others  to  useful  occupations  but  to  supply  reading 
matter,  chaperones,  etc.  Anyone  can  start  a  club  any- 
where, intellectuals  can  get  together,  the  rich  can  help 
those  in  need,  those  with  unoccupied  time  can  help  those 
who  need  sympathy  and  companionship,  those  with 
happy  homes  may  occasionally  open  them  to  the  home- 
less, or  they  can  simply  form  good  cheer  circles.  There 
are  no  dues  but  volunteer  funds  have  sufficed  for  this 
"silver-haired  sisterhood,"  which  has  often  provided 
friends  for  the  friendless  and  employment  for  the  unoc- 
cupied. Many  women  of  the  more  or  less  leisured  class 
have  thus  found  spheres  of  usefulness  which  they  pre- 
ferred to  bridge,  gossip,  "kettledrum  or  kaffee-klatsch." 
Some  branches  of  the  club  have  an  exchange  where 
members  can  send  things  that  they  make  for  sale.  Young 
couples,  especially  brides,  are  often  aided  in  starting 
homes. 

In  Kilmarnock,  Ayrshire,  Scotland,  is  a  beautiful  pub- 
lic park  with  an  avenue  of  old  trees  under  which  the 
old  men  of  the  district  who  were  come  to  the  resting 
time  of  life  used  to  foregather  "for  a  crack  and  a 
smoke."  Then  a  kind  man,  remembering  the  frequent 
rainy  days  there  were,  presented  them  with  an  old  rail- 

193 


SENESCENCE 

way  carriage  as  a  shelter  where  this  group  could  meet 
in  shower  or  shine.  Later  the  park  was  extended  and 
a  public-spirited  man  erected  a  pretty  little  dwelling  for 
the  club,  red  tiled,  with  a  veranda  all  around.  Here  are 
games  and  books  and  here  the  club  meets  at  will.  Provi- 
sion has  also  been  made  for  a  yearly  summer  holiday 
for  the  members. 

Stroudsburg,  Pennsylvania,  boasts  an  octogenarian 
society,  the  last  annual  meeting  of  which  on  September 
29,  1921,  witnessed  a  gathering  of  twenty-one  members. 

A  sagacious  and  venerable  correspondent  has  sug- 
gested to  the  writer  that  the  time  is  ripe  for  some  kind 
of  a  senescent  league  of  national  dimensions  which 
should,  of  course,  establish  relations  with  all  existing 
associations  of  the  old  but  should  slowly  develop  a  some- 
what elaborate  organization  of  its  own,  with  committees 
on  finance,  on  the  literature  of  senescence,  including  its 
psychology,  physiology  and  hygiene,  etc.  If  such  an 
organization  under  any  name  were  founded,  it  should 
certainly  have  an  organ  or  journal  of  its  own  that  should 
be  the  medium  of  correspondence,  keeping  its  members 
informed  to  date  upon  all  matters  of  interest  or  profit 
to  them,  perhaps  keeping  tab  on  instances  of  extreme 
longevity  or  unusual  conservation  of  energy,  with  pos 
sibly  a  junior  department  eventually  for  youngsters  of 
fifty.  It  should  concern  itself  with  the  phenomena  con- 
nected with  the  turning  of  the  tide  of  life,  which  so 
often  occurs  even  in  the  fourth  decade.  It  would  be 
interesting  to  know  how  such  an  organization  would 
appeal  to  intelligent  old  men  and  women.  That  it  might 
do  great  good  is  hardly  to  be  doubted. 


CHAPTER   V 

MEDICAL  VIEWS  AND  TREATMENT  OF  OLD  AGE 

The  self-knowledge  that  doctors  give — Insidious  approach  of  many  dis- 
eases—Medical views  of  the  old  age  of  body  and  mind  (senile  dementia) 
— Charcot — G.  M.  Humphry — Sir  James  Crichton-Browne — H.  M. 
Friedman— H.  Gilford— H.  Oertel— A.  S.  Warthin— W.  Spielmeyer— 
I.  L.  Nascher — Sir  Dyce  Duckworth — Robert  Saundby — Arnold  Lorand 
— T.  D.  Crothers— C.  G.  Stockton— W.  G.  Thompson— M.  L.  Price— 
G.  S.  Keith— J.  M.  Taylor— C.  W.  Saleeby— C.  A.  Ewald— Raymond 
Pearl— Protest  against  the  prepotence  of  heredity  in  determining 
longevity. 

BY  an  instinct  that  is  very  deep  and  strong  most  old 
people  shrink  from  realizing  just  what  their  stage  of 
life  is  and  means,  although  most  are  ready  enough  to 
discuss  such  symptoms  as  are  forced  upon  their  con- 
sciousness. Disguise  it  as  we  will,  old  age  is  now  only 
too  commonly  a  hateful  and  even  ghastly  thing.  Even 
those  most  garrulous  and  pessimistic  about  their  infirmi- 
ties are  often  prone  to  an  almost  fetishistic  focalization 
upon  certain  symptom-groups  of  their  own  to  the  neglect 
of  others  by  the  same  mechanism  by  which  general 
anxiety  may  come  to  a  head  on  a  single  phobia,  which 
is  thus  exaggerated,  because  all  the  affectivity  of  their 
more  general  state  finds  an  outcrop  in  some  special  fear. 
This  mechanism  is  the  same,  too,  as  that  by  which  love 
may  find  a  vent  for  itself  in  some  amatory  fetish.  Few, 
indeed,  are  the  old  men,  and  perhaps  fewer  still  the  old 
women,  who  do  not  seek  to  seem  to  others  younger  than 
their  real  physiological  age,  and  all  even  to  their  inner- 
most selves  are  prone  to  dwell  more  on  what  the  great 

195 


SENESCENCE 

deprivator  leaves  behind  than  on  what  he  has  taken 
away.  Childhood  and  youth  long  forward,  old  age  longs 
backward. 

Wishing  to  really  know  myself  as  old,  I  subjected 
myself  upon  my  retirement  to  the  examination  and  tests 
of  some  half  dozen  medical  experts  for  eyes,  ears,  heart, 
lungs,  digestive  tract,  kidneys,  and  even  sex,  but  was 
surprised  to  find  how  hard  it  was  to  do  so.  A  strong 
minority  of  my  impulses  preferred  the  ignorance  that  is 
often  bliss.  There  are  no  mental  tests  of  generally 
recognized  validity  above  the  teens,  so  that  we  have 
no  criteria  for  determining  psychological  age  for  even 
the  elderly,  while  psychoanalysts  refuse  on  the  express 
authority  of  Freud  to  take  on  patients  over  forty.  When 
it  was  well  over  I  was  glad,  for  most  organs  and  func- 
tions were  found  to  be  in  fair  condition,  although  one 
was  in  need  of  some  special  care.  I  realized  anew,  how- 
ever, that  there  are  no  gerontologists,  as  there  are  ex- 
perts for  women,  children,  etc.,  and  that  barring  acute 
attacks  I  must  henceforth,  for  the  most  part,  be  my  own 
physician  and  that  I  must  give  far  more  attention  than 
ever  before  to  keeping  well  and  in  condition.  Body- 
keeping  for  the  old  is  a  very  personal  and  pressing  prob- 
lem requiring  much  time  and  attention,  and  the  methods 
that  are  successful  differ  so  widely  that  the  diet  and 
regimen  good  for  one  might  be  dangerous,  if  not  fatal, 
for  another.  But  my  chief  interest  for  months  centered 
in  rather  voracious  medical  and  psychiatric  literature 
upon  senility  and  its  disorders  till  my  friends  thought 
me  in  danger  of  growing  morbid  and  predicted  and 
feared  hypochondria.  Gruesome  and  depressing  as  it 
all  was,  it  had  nevertheless  a  certain  grim  fascination 
to  know  what  a  cohort  of  disorders  encamp  about  and 
prey  upon  the  aged,  any  group  of  which  is  liable  to  assail 
and  perhaps  take  the  citadel  of  life  by  storm.  Evasion 
of  these  enemies  gives  a  new  sense  of  heroism. 

196 


MEDICAL  VIEWS  AND  TREATMENT 

Rheumatism,  lumbago,  varicose  veins,  calcified  ar- 
teries, compensated  for  by  enlargement  of  the  heart,  its 
valvular  leaks  and  weakness,  high  abnormal  blood  pres- 
sure, adiposity  or  progressive  emaciation,  shaking  palsy, 
cramps,  bronchitis,  asthma,  shortness  of  breath,  gout, 
stone,  Bright's  disease,  diabetes,  constipation,  piles, 
hernia,  prostate  troubles,  tuberculosis,  cancer,  dyspep- 
sias, flatulence,  nausea,  vertigo,  flaccid  and  atrophied 
pudenda,  feeble  voice,  defective  sleep,  failing  eyesight 
and  hearing,  weakness  of  muscles,  gaps  in  dentition, 
rather  more  hygienic  than  the  complete  edentate  state; 
and  beyond  all  these  and  many  more  the  certain  prospect 
of  death  just  ahead  or  around  the  corner,  liable  to  come 
from  many  of  these  causes  or  from  any  one  of  them 
already  so  well  advanced  that  to  know  is  no  longer  to 
prevent  it — these  are  the  things  the  old  face  if  they  have 
the  courage  not  to  flee  from  real  facts.  One  or  more 
of  these  maladies  is  sure  to  strangle,  starve,  bleed, 
poison,  or  paralyze  us  suddenly  or  slowly,  and  that  ere 
long.  Some  of  us  will  die  from  the  top  down  with 
dementia  more  or  less  developed,  while  for  others  some 
vegetative  organ  will  collapse  and  drag  down  with  it  all 
the  rest  of  our  powers,  which  might  otherwise  go  on  for 
a  decade  or  two.  These  are  the  things  that  often  make 
the  old  pessimistic.  They  are  the  secrets  of  age  that 
must  be  kept  from  the  young  lest  they  interfere  with 
their  joy  of  life  and  which  religion  and  philosophy  have 
done  their  best  from  the  beginning  of  history  to  mitigate. 
Thus  the  soul  of  the  old,  when  it  confronts  the  sternest 
of  all  facts  at  close  quarters,  grows  more  and  more  prone 
to  seek  diversion  than  consolation,  for  the  former  in  fact 
is  the  chief  resource  of  senescence  although,  as  I  shall 
indicate  later,  modern  science  is  slowly  evolving  a  third 
and  better  one. 

Meanwhile,  since  medicine  is  far  from  having  yet 
developed  any  systematic  or  coherent  gerontology,  al- 

197 


SENESCENCE 

though  it  has  marshaled  many  facts  and  given  us  many 
hints  toward  such  a  science,  it  has  seemed  to  me  that 
in  the  present  state  of  knowledge  I  can  serve  the  reader 
better  by  epitomizing,  without  any  attempt  at  system- 
atization  that  would  be  certainly  premature,  the  aperqus 
and  the  standpoints  of  those  who  seem  to  me  in  recent 
years  to  have  written  more  wisely  than  others  upon  this 
theme,  as  follows. 

The  only  attempt  at  a  history  of  what  medicine  has 
done  for  old  age  that  I  can  find  is  in  an  old  book  by 
Charcot1  in  which  he  attempts  to  list  and  characterize 
the  far  too  few  studies  of  any  importance  made  upon 
the  subject  up  to  that  date.  He  urges  that  medical 
science  should  give  far  more  attention  to  it. 

Dr.  G.  M.  Humphry2  gives  us  a  memorable  study  of 
five  hundred  old  people  of  over  eighty  years  of  age,  in- 
cluding an  equal  number  of  males  and  females.  He 
stresses  the  fact  that  the  descending  changes  of  develop- 
ment are  just  as  orderly  as  its  earlier  ascending  phases 
and  that  civilization  enables  us  to  see  far  more  of  the 
natural  processes  of  senescence  than  was  possible  when 
the  conditions  of  life  were  ruder,  for  we  can  now  pro- 
mote the  powers  of  self-maintenance  to  a  degree  impos- 
sible before.  "The  chief  requisite  for  longevity  must 
clearly  be  the  inherent  or  inborn  quality  of  endurance, 
of  steady,  persistent,  nutritive  force,  which  includes  re- 
cuperative power  and  resistance  to  disturbing  agencies 
and  a  good  degree  of  balance  between  the  several 
organs."  That  is,  each  must  be  sound  in  itself  and  have 
due  relation  to  the  strength  of  other  organs.  "If  the 
heart  and  digestive  system  are  disproportionately  strong, 
they  will  overload  and  oppress  the  other  organs,  one  of 
which  will  give  way." 

His  findings  indicate  that  both  men  and  women  of 

*  Clinical  Lectures  on  Senile  and  Chronic  Diseases,  Lond.,  1881,  Lecture  I. 

*  "Old  Age  and  the  Changes  Incident  to  it,"  Brit.  Med.  /.,  March  9,  1885. 

198 


MEDICAL  VIEWS  AND  TREATMENT 

average  size  and  stature  live  longer  than  those  much 
larger  or  smaller.  He  thinks,  too,  that  there  must  be 
some  trait  associated  with  the  development  of  the  tuber- 
cle bacillus,  "which  is  not  only  not  incompatible  with 
longevity  but  is  not  infrequently  associated  with  it"; 
and  this  condition  he  found  in  eighty-two  of  the  cases 
he  studied.  Most  of  them  belonged  to  long-lived  families, 
had  enjoyed  good  health,  appetite,  and  digestion,  had 
taken  little  medicine,  eaten  little  meat,  been  only  very 
slightly  addicted  to  alcohol,  had  been  good  sleepers,  and 
rarely  suffered  from  long  or  exhausting  diseases.  Most 
had  been  much  out-of-doors.  The  average  number  of 
teeth  in  all  these  subjects  was  six  for  men  and  three  for 
women,  and  only  fifty-seven  were  entirely  without  them. 
The  upper  or  alveolar  part  of  the  jaw  tended  to  be 
absorbed  and  only  the  later,  firmer  growth  of  the  lower 
part  of  it  to  be  retained.  In  primitive  man  probably 
loss  of  teeth  would  materially  shorten  life.  The  skull, 
which  generally  becomes  lighter,  may  also  sometimes  be- 
come heavier  and  increase  inwardly  as  the  brain  shrinks. 
The  rate  of  the  heart  varies  very  little  as  age  advances. 
From  eighty  to  ninety  years  he  found  it  averaged  73-74 
beats  per  minute  in  men  and  78-79  in  women.  Respira- 
tion was  19-20  times  per  minute  and,  like  the  heart,  was 
very  slightly  accelerated,  although  the  respiratory 
change  might  be  due  to  the  prevalence  of  bronchitis  in 
old  people. 

He  found  little  tendency  to  senile  dementia  and  many 
of  even  the  very  aged  had  their  mental  faculties  intact 
and  took  a  keen  interest  in  passing  events,  possessed 
clear  judgment,  and  were  full  of  thought  for  the  present 
and  future  welfare  of  others.  "It  is  no  less  satisfactory 
to  find  that  the  active,  even  severe  and  long-continued 
intellectual  activity  of  the  matured  brain  seems  in  no 
way  to  impair  its  enduring  qualities,  and  that  good, 
earnest,  useful  employment  of  the  body  and  mind  are 

199 


SENESCENCE 

not    only    compatible    with    but    even    conducive    to 
longevity." 

Of  157  of  the  males  who  replied,  only  six  had  ever 
had  diseases  of  the  prostate  or  bladder,  so  that  in  gen- 
eral he  thinks  that  "the  aged  body  does  not  seem  to  be, 
on  the  whole,  prone  to  disease."  Few  of  his  returns 
indicate  the  presence  of  any  special  malady.  "We  know 
that  even  cancers,  when  they  attack  old  people,  often 
make  slow  progress  in  them  and  sometimes  fail  to  make 
way  at  all,  remaining  stationary  or  even  withering,  and 
the  susceptibility  to  contagious  disease  appears  to  de- 
crease from  infancy  to  old  age.  Quite  as  remarkable 
is  the  fact  that  recovery  from  wounds,  fractures,  or 
operations,  seems  to  be  quite  as  rapid,  and  sometimes 
more  so  than  in  middle  age.  Indeed,  wounds  in  the  old 
heal  very  quickly  provided  they  do  not  slough,  indicating 
two  opposite  tendencies."  He  also  finds  evidence  of 
greater  vital  energy  in  parts  nearest  to  those  diseased 
provided  they  are  able  to  live  at  all,  as  if  nature  had  re- 
cuperative processes  of  stimulating  parts  adjacent  to 
lesions.  He  chronicled  few  more  surprising  results  than 
the  inf requency  of  sclerosis. 

Sir  James  Crichton-Browne's  long  article3  is  a  classic 
and  is  based  on  very  comprehensive  statistical  and  other 
studies.  He  tells  physicians  that  it  should  be  their  great 
aim  to  grow  old  themselves  and  to  be  the  cause  of  old 
age  in  others.  The  marked  increase  in  the  duration  of 
life  in  recent  decades  has  been  almost  entirely  confined 
to  its  early  stages.  After  45  the  decline  in  the  death 
rate  has  been  insignificant;  and  after  65,  as  we  have 
elsewhere  seen,  it  has  actually  increased.  Thus  the  pro- 
portion of  men  ripened  by  experience  has  in  fact  de- 
clined. What  carries  off  the  old?  Not  fever,  smallpox, 

'"Old  Age,"  Brit.  Med.,  Oct  2,  1891. 
200 


MEDICAL  VIEWS  AND  TREATMENT 

or  phthisis  chiefly,  as  was  once  the  case,  but  the  follow- 
ing in  order  of  frequency:  cancer,  heart  diseases, 
nervous  troubles,  and  kidney  complaints,  and  these  are 
all  degenerative  diseases  due  not  so  much  to  intemperance 
as  to  the  new  strains  of  modern  life,  which  are  less  felt 
in  the  country  and  less  by  women. 

Society  needs  to  have  life  lengthened  instead  of  abbre- 
viated at  its  extreme  end  but  men  and  women  to-day 
are  growing  old  before  their  time.  We  often  have 
deaths  reported  to  be  from  old  age  between  45  and  55. 
Indeed,  atrophy  and  debility  often  come  prematurely. 
The  long-sightedness  of  old  age  seems  to  begin  earlier 
than  it  used  to  do  and  the  increased  number  of  those 
who  wear  glasses  cannot  be  entirely  explained  by  better 
diagnosis.  It  is  quite  clear  that  those  who  live  in  hot 
climates  show  these  optical  symptoms  of  old  age  earlier 
than  Europeans.  The  teeth,  too,  are  certainly  degen- 
erating earlier  than  formerly,  and  early  baldness  is  prob- 
ably increasing  still  more.  Senile  insanity  or  atrophy 
of  the  brain  is  certainly  more  common  and  appears 
earlier.  It  abounds  in  our  metropolitan  asylums  where 
human  wreckage  accumulates.  Very  many  enter  the 
outer  circles  of  melancholia  without  proceeding  to  de- 
mentia and  still  fewer  proceed  to  suicide,  the  rate  of 
which  is  also  rapidly  increasing  after  45.  Touches  of 
this  kind  of  depression  are  very  often  felt  at  the  turning 
point  of  life  or  soon  after,  perhaps  at  the  first  discovery 
of  gray  hairs,  and  many  are  tormented  in  private  and 
perhaps  in  the  silent  watches  of  the  night  by  the  realiza- 
tion that  youth  is  leaving  them.  Such,  however,  is  the 
law  of  nature,  for  even  the  stars  and  planets  grow  old, 
as  we  know  by  their  spectra.  The  voice  is  not  normally 
shrill  or  quavering  but  may  be  very  strong  unless  the 
crop  of  wild  oats,  which  always  ripens  in  later  years, 
is  too  rank.  Conscience  may  awaken  near  the  turn, 
especially  if  too  many  dregs  have  accumulated  in  the 

201 


SENESCENCE 

cup  of  life  or  the  machinery  has  been  overstrained.  The 
fact  is,  the  infirmities  often  attached  to  age  may,  each 
of  them,  in  single  cases  be  absent,  so  that  typical  old 
age  is  rare,  and  any  one  of  them  is  far  less  prevalent 
than  is  generally  supposed. 

Our  life  is  made  up  of  a  series  of  evolutions  of  a  group 
of  different  functions  that  develop  serially,  beginning 
at  different  age  epochs,  reaching  their  maximum  vigor, 
and  then  declining.  The  hyaline  cartilage  dies  of  old 
age  when  bone  is  formed  of  it,  as  the  milk  teeth  do. 
The  thymus  gland  has  completed  its  growth  at  the  third 
year  and  slowly  atrophies  with  every  sign  of  age.  The 
nervous  system  has  the  most  sustained  evolution.  The 
infant,  child,  youth,  are  learning  higher  coordinations, 
and  the  psycho-motor  system  is  not  completely  evolved 
till  the  end  of  the  teens.  The  hand  and  arm  centers 
continue  their  development  and  do  not  attain  their  per- 
fection before  thirty.  The  writer  studied  workmen  in 
various  factories  and  found  that  in  many  cases  profi- 
ciency in  manipulation  grew  for  a  decade  and  then  be- 
came stationary  at  thirty,  beyond  which  it  could  never 
be  increased,  and  later  declined.  This  decline  took  place 
sooner  in  highly  specialized  than  it  did  in  more  general 
movements.  In  some  artists,  however,  manual  skill  may 
increase  to  a  great  age. 

In  the  brain  centers  that  preside  over  language  there 
is  continuous  development,  so  that  it  has  been  carefully 
estimated  that  our  powers  of  expression  culminate  be- 
tween 45  and  55.  Demosthenes'  De  Corona,  his  master- 
piece, was  delivered  at  the  age  of  52 ;  Burke's  impeach- 
ment of  Hastings,  when  he  was  58;  and  many  authors 
have  thought  their  vocabulary  and  command  of  language 
at  its  best  during  this  decade.  After  this,  faint  symp- 
toms of  aphasia  and  amnesia  begin  to  show  themselves. 
But  it  is  in  the  frontal  lobes,  in  which  it  is  now  believed 

202 


MEDICAL  VIEWS  AND  TREATMENT 

that  the  powers  of  attention,  reason  and  judgment  are 
located,  that  the  acme  of  development  comes  still  later, 
perhaps  in  the  decade  ending  at  the  age  of  65.  Indeed, 
Moebius  and  others  have  shown  that  the  cortical  layers 
believed  to  be  most  closely  associated  with  mentation  are 
still  developing  as  late  as  the  age  of  sixty-three.  Bacon 
produced  the  first  two  books  of  the  Novum  Organum  at 
59 ;  Kant's  Critique  of  Pure  Reason  was  produced  when 
he  was  57;  Harvey's  great  work  on  the  circulation,  when 
he  was  72,  etc.  It  is  certain  that  long  after  memory  of 
names  and  physical  vigor  have  begun  to  abate,  the  power 
of  comparison,  inference,  and  above  all  a  moral  sense, 
which  is  perhaps  the  finest  and  latest  of  all  our  powers, 
comes  to  full  maturity. 

The  ideal  of  a  greater  old  age  is  not  an  idle  dream 
and  Browne  insists  that  physicians  should  strive  them- 
selves to  live  to  be  100  and  to  make  their  patients  do  so. 
The  best  antiseptic  against  senile  decay  is,  he  thinks, 
active  interest  in  human  afTairs.  This,  at  any  rate, 
should  be  our  working  hypothesis.  A  man  of  80  should 
realize  that  he  has  one-fifth  of  his  life  before  him.  He 
tells  us  of  a  man  of  84  who  attempted  suicide  because 
he  could  no  longer  support  his  parents,  and  of  another 
of  1 02  who  had  undergone  a  successful  operation  for 
cancer  of  the  lip  without  anaesthetics.  Of  course,  senile 
involution,  when  cell  growth  is  more  than  counterbalanced 
by  cell  decay,  is  the  natural  pathway  to  death,  and  a  man 
ultimately  dies  of  it  when  there  is  no  question  of  disease. 
But  the  brain,  like  the  lens  of  the  eye,  may  become 
flatter  and  more  longsighted,  focusing  better  on  objects 
far  than  those  that  are  near.  There  is  no  short  cut  to 
longevity.  Its  achievement  must  be  the  work  of  a  life- 
time. Sympathy,  which  goes  far  deeper  than  courteous 
manners,  is  fundamental  for  the  successful  treatment  of 
old  age. 

203 


SENESCENCE 

H.  M.  Friedman4  begins  his  comprehensive  treatise 
with  biological  and  embryological  considerations,  and 
here  perhaps  he  makes  his  most  original  suggestions. 
The  higher  the  plane  of  the  animal,  the  more  marked 
is  cell  differentiation  or  specialization  and  this  affects 
most  cells.  Once  a  degree  of  differentiation  is  observed, 
no  backward  step  to  a  previous  state  of  generalization, 
regeneration,  or  rejuvenation  is  possible.  The  higher 
the  ascent  of  the  cell  in  the  plane  of  differentiation,  the 
lower  is  its  power  of  rejuvenation.  Connective  tissue, 
muscle  fiber,  and  cylindrical  cells  are  the  least  differ- 
entiated and  therefore  have  the  greatest  power  of  re- 
generation. Nerve  cells  have  the  least  because  their  work 
is  of  a  high  order  and  they  are  most  specialized.  Nerve 
fibers  are  mere  conductors  and  they  and  epithelial  cells 
have  probably  the  greatest  power  of  regeneration. 

Again,  the  more  differentiated  the  cell,  the  more  rapid 
is  its  development,  early  decline,  and  death.  Precocity 
even  of  the  separate  cell  purports  early  maturity.  "So 
senescence  is  an  increased  differentiation  of  the  proto- 
plasm, while  rejuvenation  is  an  increase  of  the  nuclear 
elements  at  the  expense  of  the  protoplasm."  The  in- 
crease of  nuclear  material  allows  fission  and  the  forma- 
tion of  new  cells.  Thus  the  degree  of  differentiation  is 
greatest  as  fission  or  mytosis  is  least.  The  power  of 
regeneration  is  in  direct  proportion  to  the  power  of  cell 
fission.  Thus  "the  greater  the  cell  differentiation,  the 
smaller  the  mytotic  index."  With  maturity  the  decrease 
of  the  mytotic  index,  or  the  number  of  tissues  into  the 
composition  of  which  the  cell  can  enter,  becomes  re- 
stricted. The  cells  in  the  original  germinal  layer  have 
before  them  the  possibility  of  entering  into  the  structure 
of  any  tissue,  but  as  cells  differentiate  the  germinal 
layers  take  on  a  more  structural  character  and  leave  the 

4  "Senility,  Premature  Senility,  and  Longevity,"  Med.  Jour.,  New  York, 
July  10,  1915. 

2O4 


MEDICAL  VIEWS  AND  TREATMENT 

field  to  the  entrance  of  cells  into  different  tissue  forma- 
tions more  restricted,  since  during  development  the  num- 
ber of  tissues  yet  unformed  or  undifferentiated  becomes 
less  and  less  and  once  a  cell  has  assumed  a  personality 
it  must  continue  to  follow  it  up  and  cannot  diverge  from 
it.  This  is  the  law  of  genetic  restriction.  The  younger 
the  cells,  the  greater  their  multiplying  power  and  the 
greater  the  tissue  possibilities  they  can  choose.  Hence 
morbid  tumors  are  formed  from  young  cells  of  higher 
mytotic  index  whose  genetic  restriction  has  not  pro- 
gressed far  enough  to  inhibit  range  and  rapidity  of 
growth.  Before  genetic  restriction  young  cells  may  be- 
come one  tissue  or  another.  Injuries  causing  cell  de- 
generation of  the  young  cells  are  often,  therefore,  the 
seats  of  morbid  growths.  The  young  or  undifferentiated 
cells  forming  malignant  amorphous  tumors  and  growing 
in  tissues  alien  to  them  develop  rapidly,  probably  because 
they  are  deprived  of  the  "social"  restriction  to  over- 
growth that  they  would  have  in  their  own  cell  society. 
Thus  the  presence  of  young  cells  in  out-of-the-way 
places  or  where  older  and  more  differentiated  cells  would 
be  expected  should  excite  suspicion.  "Young  cells,  like 
young  children,  are  safest  among  their  own." 

Generally  a  cell  in  an  organism  lives  long  enough  to 
reproduce  its  kind ;  else  the  species  would  die  and  death 
does  occur  in  many  lower  organisms  immediately  after 
ovulation.  The  young  thus  grow  rapidly,  while  old  age 
is  the  period  of  slowest  growth ;  and  indeed  the  rate  of 
growth  depends  upon  the  degree  of  senescence.  The 
tendency  to  senescence  is  at  its  maximum  in  the  very 
young  and  the  rate  of  senescence  diminishes  with  age. 

As  to  the  cause  of  senility,  physiologically  it  is  desic- 
cation. At  birth  there  is  most  fluid  and  gaseous  ma- 
terial, but  organization  demands  solidarity.  Lactic  acid 
may  retard  the  growth  of  intestinal  flora  and  the  up-keep 
of  the  intestinal  toilet  by  larvage.  Intoxication  of  some 
205 


SENESCENCE 

kind  is  a  factor  in  many  of  the  changes  accompanying 
senility.  Lorand  thought  age  was  chiefly  due  to  atrophy 
and  degenerative  tissue  by  failure  of  the  function  of  the 
ductless  glands,  especially  the  thyroid.  The  myxede- 
matous  look  and  are  old.  Thus  the  limit  of  life  is  a 
matter  of  excretion.  The  special  organs  of  elimination 
cannot  act  to  their  full  capacity  or  to  that  of  vital  neces- 
sity because  of  the  replacement  in  senility  of  parenchyma 
by  fibrous  or  fatty  tissue.  The  retained  waste  products 
increase  the  sclerotic  changes  and  produce  a  vicious 
circle — irritation,  intoxication,  and  atheroma.  The  de- 
generation of  the  first  stage  produces  insufficiency  of  the 
organs  of  elimination  and  the  degeneration  of  all  organs. 

As  to  physical  manifestations,  there  is  atrophy  of  the 
higher  and  more  specialized  cells  and  they  are  replaced 
by  hypertrophied  connective  tissue.  The  heart  is  en- 
larged but  this  is  compensatory  for  the  stiffening  and 
narrowing  of  the  lumen  of  the  great  vessels  near  it  and 
so  the  blood  pressure  is  increased.  The  changes  in  bone, 
ligament,  and  tendons  are  extreme,  with  increased 
enervation  throughout  the  body  and  perhaps  senile 
marasmus,  which  may  bring  extreme  emaciation  or 
osteomalacia  and  even  bone  deformity.  This  may  affect 
nervous  and  mental  elements,  like  senile  asystole  and 
changes  in  the  blood.  The  temperature,  however,  is  not 
affected. 

As  to  mental  manifestations,  this  author  says  they 
are  extremely  variable,  insidious,  and  have  a  very  wide 
latitude.  The  vitality  of  the  mind  should  be  far  greater 
than  that  of  the  body.  Old  age  dulls  conscience,  may 
bring  vanity  and  new  ambitions,  petulance,  irritability, 
misanthropy,  and  slows  down  activity.  But  the  best 
average  barometer  of  mental  failure  is  memory,  the  loss 
of  which  comes  as  an  advance  guard  of  many  symptoms. 
The  old  have  no  faith  in  the  young,  for  example,  Vir- 
chow  and  Agassiz  would  not  accept  evolution.  There  is 

206 


MEDICAL  VIEWS  AND  TREATMENT 

a  universal  tendency  to  overeat,  although  we  should 
"descend  out  of  life  as  we  ascended  into  it,  even  as  to 
the  child's  diet."  The  first  sign  that  food  must  be  re- 
duced is  increased  blood  pressure.  If  only  lower  ideals 
were  exercised  in  early  life,  the  reversion  is  ominous. 
Age  is  never  chronological  except  in  the  legal  sense.  It 
is  often  called  a  vascular  problem.  The  old  have 
immunity  from  certain  diseases  such  as  eruptive  fevers, 
typhoid,  phthisis,  and  old  tissues  do  not  seem  to  be  good 
media  for  these  disease  agencies,  but  age  is  very  prone 
to  pneumonic  infections  and  erysipelas. 

As  to  premature  senility,  in  general  its  symptoms  are 
identical  with  those  of  mature  senility.  The  old  are 
particularly  prone  to  flush  under  very  slight  emotional 
strain  and  cannot  throw  off  care  or  control  patience. 
As  to  the  causes  of  premature  senility,  abuse  rather 
than  use  is  the  key.  There  is  an  unhealthy  tendency  to 
force  decline  by  overtaxing  the  body  and  the  nerves. 
It  is  those  who  do  this  who  take  the  pace  that  kills, 
taxing  themselves  beyond  their  capacities.  Alcohol  and 
syphilis  are  specific  forerunners  of  arteriosclerosis  but 
overeating  is  worse  than  alcohol,  especially  of  meat. 
"Most  people  eat  about  twice  as  much  as  they  need,  and 
the  high  cost  of  living  is  the  high  cost  of  overeating." 
The  dietitian's  table  of  food  values  should  always  be 
consulted  but  there  has  to  be  wide  latitude  for  individual 
adjustments.  Modern  efficiency  ideals  bring  high  pres- 
sure. Change  is  the  greatest  regulator.  We  now 
relegate  older  men  to  innocuous  desuetude  to  give  the 
younger  a  chance  to  forge  ahead. 

As  to  the  proper  sphere  of  the  aged,  there  have  been 
opposite  views.  Perhaps  there  are  no  more  than  five 
hundred  really  great  men  in  history  who  were  clearly 
above  mediocrity.  Galton  thinks  70  per  cent  of  their 
work  was  completed  before  45,  and  80  per  cent  before 
50.  Dorland  analyzed  four  hundred  celebrities  and  con- 
207 


SENESCENCE 

eluded  the  average  age  of  the  commencement  of  their 
activities  was  24  years — in  musicians  perhaps  as  early 
as  17  and  scientists  at  32.  Science  is  hard  and  requires 
a  large  fund  of  experience  and  knowledge.  The  greatest 
average  for  activity  in  all  endeavors  together  is  about 
40.  To  enjoy  life  after  40  one  must  have  attained  some 
degree  of  success,  for  the  saddest  thing  is  to  reflect  on 
many  years  of  effort  and  no  accomplishment. 

As  to  medico-legal  aspects,  eccentricities  may  prevent 
the  aged  testator  from  being  allowed  the  right  of  testa- 
ment, but  in  general  the  mental  symptoms  of  advanced 
senility  differ  from  senile  dementia  only  in  degree. 

As  to  the  future  of  old  age,  those  who  are  not  senile 
have  a  distinct  place  as  counsellors.  They  should  excel 
in  strength  of  reason,  cool  judgment,  and  breadth  of 
view.  One  may  be  past  the  age  of  discretion  before 
one  is  old  in  years.  The  conservative  tendencies  of  this 
period  are  valuable  as  checks  to  the  exuberant  impulses 
of  youth.  The  dependent  aged  are  a  burden  and  their 
support  is  often  a  handicap.  With  modern  progress 
the  number  who  fail  to  keep  pace  increases  with  the 
speed  of  advance  and  this  has  to  be  complemented  by 
the  fact  that  the  old  are  increasing  in  numbers.  With 
few  exceptions  man  lives  longest  of  any  animal.  Every- 
thing does  grow  old  except  vanity  and  the  more  perfect 
the  organization  the  earlier  the  aging  and  the  sooner 
the  end,  for  it  is  the  perfect  more  surely  than  the  good 
that  die  young.  Every  stage  of  life  is  marked  by  a 
limit,  but  this  limit  varies  greatly.  "Every  man  past 
forty  is  a  fool,  physician,  or  a  divine,  and  most  people 
practically  throw  away  their  lives."  The  lower  the  scale 
of  education,  the  greater  the  hazard  of  life.  Longevity 
among  pure  muscle  workers  is  rare.  We  know  little  of 
the  influence  of  race,  but  we  know  that  women,  lean 
people,  the  married,  the  religious,  on  the  whole,  live 
longest.  Haeckel  believed  in  "medical  selection"  and 

208 


MEDICAL  VIEWS  AND  TREATMENT 

pointed  to  the  fact  that  some  have  greater  power  to 
resist  disease.  Is  this  desirable  for  the  integrity  of  the 
race?  "Death  is  a  process,  not  an  event."  Man  does 
begin  to  die  early  in  life.  The  bicycle  rider  has  to  keep 
going  to  keep  erect,  and  so  the  old  must  keep  working. 
The  first  vacation  is  often  fatal. 

Hastings  Gilford 5  regards  the  development  of  the 
human  body  as  a  whole,  or  of  any  portion  of  the  body, 
as  describing  a  curve  that  ascends  from  the  time  of  the 
union  of  the  two  genetic  elements  to  a  maximum  at 
which  there  is  the  greatest  development  of  specialization 
in  function  and  the  least  in  the  general  characters,  such 
as  those  of  multiplication.  The  curve  then  begins  to 
descend,  with  a  gradual  and  progressive  loss  of  differen- 
tiation in  form  and  function  and  an  increasing  tendency 
of  certain  cells  to  multiply.  Decay  of  certain  cells  dur- 
ing advancing  age  leads  to  their  becoming  bodies  foreign 
to  their  host,  and  this,  in  turn,  calls  forth  the  phagocytes 
which,  walling  off  the  foreign  body,  become  themselves 
transformed  into  fibrotic  tissue.  The  three  characters 
of  old  age  are  decay,  fibrosis,  and  proliferation  of  non- 
specialized  cells.  As  the  more  specialized  cells  re- 
trogress, with  the  loss  of  specialization  they  take  on  an 
increased  tendency  to  multiplication.  "Reversion  .  .  . 
is  the  keynote  of  the  proliferation  in  old  age  wherever 
it  occurs." 

Granting  the  foregoing  statements  regarding  the 
anatomy  and  biology  of  old  age  to  be  true,  Gilford  even 
believes  that  we  can  explain  cancer  in  terms  of  senility. 
He  says:  "Thus  the  typical  cancer  is  made  up  of  a 
collection  of  cells  native  to  the  part,  but  of  more 
embryonic  type,  and  these  cells  are  surrounded  by  col- 
lections of  round  indifferent  cells  derived  from  fibrous 
tissue  and  from  other  low  class  structures,  such  as 

'"Nature  of  Old  Age  and  of  Cancer,"  Brit.  Med.  /.,  Dec.  27,  1913. 
209 


SENESCENCE 

endothelium  and  leucocytes."  The  fibrous  tissue,  more- 
over, is  often  increased,  as  it  is  in  the  senile  organ. 
These  changes  may  be  interpreted  as  follows.  Certain 
somatic  cells  become  aged  while  the  tissues  around  them 
are  still  in  a  state  of  comparative  youth.  They  express 
their  senility  by  returning  to  a  more  embryonic  form, 
and  as  they  do  so  they  increase  in  number,  the  faculty 
of  multiplication  being  one  of  the  manifestations  of 
regression.  But  as  this  qualitative  change  takes  place 
they  become  alien  to  their  surroundings  and,  as  for- 
eigners or  rebels,  stimulate  into  action  the  mechanism  of 
phagocytosis.  Not  only  is  there  an  incursion  of  lympho- 
cytes into  the  parts  but  the  connective  tissue  and  endo- 
thelial  cells  in  their  vicinity  revert  to  their  embryonic 
state  and  begin  the  work  of  phagocytosis.  But  as  a 
fact  they  have  to  deal  with  neither  the  effete  products 
of  molecular  degeneration  nor  with  an  inert  foreign 
body,  for  though  virtually  strangers  cancer  cells  are  by 
no  means  inactive.  Hence  the  attack  is  abortive,  except 
in  so  far  as  the  phagocytes,  by  forming  new  fibrous 
tissue,  tend  mechanically  to  limit  the  proliferation  of 
the  cancer  cells.  For  in  the  meantime  the  fixed  con- 
nective tissue  cells  are  themselves  rapidly  proliferating, 
with  the  result  that  when  they  cease  their  activity  and 
return  to  their  resting  stage,  groups  of  cancer  cells  are 
cut  off  by  intersecting  bundles  of  fibrous  tissue,  while 
the  whole  mass  is  surrounded  by  an  incomplete  capsule 
of  the  same  structure.  This  tends  to  limit  the  encroach- 
ment of  the  growing  cancer,  and  were  it  not  for  the 
lymph  spaces  or  capillaries,  which  are  the  gaps  through 
which  the  growing  cells  escape,  no  doubt  the  limitation 
and  strangulation  of  cancers  would  occur  far  more  often 
than  they  do. 

It  will  be  noticed  that  the  more  nearly  the  cells  of  a 
cancer  approach  the  embryonic  state  the  more  rapid 
will  be  the  growth,  and  the  less  opportunity  for  fibrosis 

210 


MEDICAL  VIEWS  AND  TREATMENT 

the  more  malignant  the  cancer.  Gilford  maintains  for 
this  unique  theory  that  it  is  satisfactory,  based  as  it  is, 
upon  facts  reasonably  interpreted,  and  that  it  covers 
all  of  the  ground. 

Horst  Oertel d  holds  that  the  origin  of  cancer  in  the 
liver  is  a  transformation  of  multiple  groups  of  its  cells 
and  that  there  was  a  direct  change  of  atrophic,  degen- 
erative, existing  liver  cells  into  cancer  cells  while  they 
were  still  in  perfect  continuity  with  each  other.  In  this 
degeneration  of  normal  to  cancer  cells  the  former  lose 
their  typical  protoplasm,  the  nucleus  grows  small  and 
its  chromatin  structure  faint,  till  little  of  it  remains, 
with  only  a  faint  rim  of  surrounding  protoplasm.  At 
this  point  some  of  these  cells  show  a  very  striking 
change  in  rapid,  irregular  production  of  rich  chromatin 
arranged  in  a  less  structural  definition  and  leading  to 
marked  enlargement  of  them.  There  is  a  first  destruc- 
tive stage  with  extensive  loss  and  granular  degeneration 
of  protoplasm.  In  the  second,  incipient  regeneration 
shows  and  the  nucleus  is  markedly  enlarged,  with 
irregular  production  of  small  chromatin  granules ;  while 
in  the  third  stage,  the  carcinomatous,  we  have  a  new 
type  of  cell  following  new  laws  and  breaking  with  the 
former  physiological  arrangement  and  structure.  The 
new  functional  type  involves  rapid  independent  growth 
with  a  distinct  disregard  of  original  source  and  sur- 
roundings and  with  progressive  loss  of  continuity  and 
power  to  secrete  bile. 

Thus  he,  too,  holds  that  cancer  seems  an  embryonic 
reversal  and  involves  no  specific  changes  but  is  a  phe- 
nomenon of  senescence,  a  degeneration  of  cells  with  an 
unequal  decline  in  cell  functions.  Thus  races  of  cells 
develop  that  lack  the  differentiation  of  undegenerated 
cells  but  are  still  endowed  with  vegetative  and  repro- 

'  "Degeneration,  Senescence,  and  New  Growth,"  /.  Med.  Research,  vol. 
33,  1918,  p.  485. 

211 


SENESCENCE 

ductive  properties.  His  idea  that  the  degeneration  and 
injury  to  cells  could  be  responsible  for  growth,  was 
severely  criticised.  It  was  said  that  any  change  that 
meant  injury  could  never  be  progressive  but  would  lead 
to  diminution  of  functions.  But  the  author  still  holds 
that  injury  may  produce  growth  of  all  kinds  of  tumors, 
for  example,  in  the  pancreas,  growth  and  cell  division 
is  dependent  upon  the  release  of  certain  inhibitory  in- 
fluences that  exist  in  the  normal  well-balanced  cells. 
This  upset  may  be  caused  by  certain  liquid  solvents  but 
the  idea  of  formative  stimuli  on  the  whole  seems  to  hold ; 
namely,  cancer  cells  arise  out  of  degenerative  and 
atrophic  changes,  so  that  injury,  degeneration,  and 
growth  do  not  exclude  each  other  but  stand  in  genetic 
relation. 

That  organs  that  have  reached  full  maturity  and  dif- 
ferentiation are  stable  and  fixed  in  cell  type  and  organ- 
ization is  false.  Our  organs  are  constantly  in  active 
regression,  degeneration,  and  progression,  and  it  is  diffi- 
cult to  separate  pathological  from  physiological  changes. 
The  pancreas  is  particularly  in  constant  regression  and 
progression.  Thus  it  is  peculiarly  unstable  and  the  limit 
of  normality  in  its  variations  cannot  be  determined. 
Senescence  is  accompanied  by  multiple  degenerative 
changes  in  many  other  organs  and  tissues,  and  asso- 
ciated with  these  are  various  benign  and  malignant 
tumors  that  seem  to  result  from  degenerative  changes. 
Thus  Oertel's  idea  of  endless  proliferation  as  a  result 
of  differentiation  is  not  an  idle  speculation  but  rests 
upon  an  anatomical  and  experimental  basis. 

A.  S.  Warthin  T  says  that  syphilitic  cases  are  generally 
regarded  as  cured  if  the  Wassermann  reaction  is  nega- 
tive but  there  are  very  many  cases  that  this  escapes. 
It  is  commoner  than  is  supposed,  the  usual  estimates 

*  The  New  Pathology  of  Syphilis,  Harvey  Lectures  1917-19,  P-  67. 
212 


MEDICAL  VIEWS  AND  TREATMENT 

being  that  from  5  per  cent  to  15  per  cent  of  deaths  are 
due  to  it,  but  this  writer  for  America  and  Osier  for 
Great  Britain,  place  it  at  30  per  cent.  "Syphilis  is  the 
leading  infection  and  the  chief  cause  of  death,  particu- 
larly in  males  between  40  and  60,  and  in  the  great 
majority  of  cases  its  symptoms  are  myocardial,  vascular, 
renal,  or  hepatic,  and  this  is  often  not  recognized  as 
a  remote  result/'  The  author  has  never  seen  a  marked 
case  of  syphilis  cured.  Most  die  as  a  result  of  mild 
inflammatory  processes  of  the  viscera  and  blood  vessels 
rather  than  from  paresis  or  tabes.  It  is  progressive 
and  marks  the  individual  as  damaged  goods.  Even 
immunity  is  bought  at  a  price.  All  the  organs  must  be 
examined  before  it  is  pronounced  certainly  absent.  It 
is  a  spirochete-carrier.  It  tends  to  become  mild  but  at 
any  time  the  partnership  between  the  spirochete  and 
the  body  may  be  disturbed  and  the  tissues  susceptible 
to  the  violence  of  the  spirochete  may  be  increased  so 
that  the  disease  again  appears  above  the  clinical  horizon. 
Chronic  myocarditis  is  the  most  common  form  of  death. 
W.  Spielmeyer8  says  that  in  the  last  decade  the 
clinicians  and  pathological  anatomists  have  discussed 
old  age  more  than  in  preceding  decades.  We  know  that 
organs  are  used  up  and  that  their  substance  is  not  fully 
replaced.  The  functionally  exciting  parenchyma  is  in- 
jured by  its  own  function  and  in  this  metabolism  the 
quality  and  sometimes  the  volume  of  the  organ  is  re- 
duced. Thus  old  age  is  a  function  of  the  work  of  the 
organism  and  it  seems  to  be  an  intrinsic  quality  of  cells 
to  use  themselves  up.  Many  do  not  regard  age  as  a 
normal  physiological  process  but  with  Metchnikoff  think 
it  is  due  to  injurious  substances,  that  is,  endogenous 
toxins  that  are  more  important  than  the  exogenous 
factors,  so  that  blood  vessels,  glands,  and  muscle  and 

8  "Die  Psychosen  des  Ruckbildungs-  und  Greisenalters,"  Handbuch  der 
Psychiatric,  Spezieller  Teil,  5  Abteilung,  Leipzig,  1912. 

213 


SENESCENCE 

ganglia  cells  degenerate.  But  the  cortical  cells,  as  the 
most  sensitive  of  the  organism,  are  more  often  injured. 
Metchnikoff  thinks  that  the  higher  elements  of  the 
tissues  are  in  conflict  with  the  lower  and  are  overcome 
by  them,  the  phagocytes  being  left  masters  of  the  field. 

Few,  however,  hold  this  view.  Ribbert,  Naunyn, 
Hansemann,  and  Nothnagel  think  that  outer  and  inner 
injuries  should  have  precedence  in  accounting  for  old 
age.  But  without  these  cooperative  factors  there  is  a 
physiological  determinant  of  the  organism  and  its  parts 
to  be  used  up  and  they  become  senile  and  lapse  by  physio- 
logical processes,  while  Naunyn  thinks  that  it  is  perhaps 
a  general  law  that  every  organ  fulfills  its  functional 
task  only  by  impairment  of  its  complete  organic  in- 
tegrity. This  using  up  of  an  organism  by  its  own  work 
occurs  first  in  the  brain  and  the  central  nervous  system. 
There  is  a  general  decline  in  weight,  even  in  the  fourth 
or  third  decennium,  which  is  accelerated  in  the  seventies 
and  may  reach  one  hundred  grams  (Naunyn)  and,  in 
pathological  states,  still  more.  It  is,  therefore,  of  great 
interest  for  the  relation  of  function  and  the  use-up  of 
organs  that  brain  atrophy  is  not  usually  uniform  or 
diffuse  but  that  there  is  often  a  difference  between  the 
right  and  left  hemispheres  in  the  diminution  of  their 
volume.  The  left  hemisphere  is  more  used  and  usually 
more  atrophied  than  the  right.  The  left  convolutions, 
therefore,  suffer  most  reduction. 

Among  the  earliest  and  most  uniform  changes  due  to 
age  is  the  regressive  transformation  of  the  blood  ves- 
sels as  in  sclerosis.  As  the  central  tissues  suffer  from 
a  using  up  of  their  nervous  substance,  the  central  ves- 
sels are  soon  involved.  Till  lately  we  have  assumed  that 
these  disease  processes  in  senium  were  a  result  and  ex- 
pression of  the  primary  affections  of  the  blood  vessels 
in  these  organs.  But  it  now  appears  that  as  in  other 
organs,  for  example,  the  kidneys,  grave  age  changes 
214 


MEDICAL  VIEWS  AND  TREATMENT 

can  occur  while  blood  vessels  are  intact.  So  in  the  cen- 
tral organ  grave  independent  age  changes  can  occur 
without  being  caused  by  the  blood  vessels.  To  be  sure, 
they  often  concur  for  the  simple  reason  that  the  nervous 
system,  like  that  of  the  vessels,  is  found  affected  often- 
est  and  earliest  in  old  age.  But  the  assumption  of  a 
dependence  of  central  nervous  degeneration  was  an 
erroneous  conclusion  from  the  observation  that  by  these 
frequent  degenerative  processes  in  the  walls  of  the  ves- 
sels there  were,  at  the  same  time,  phenomena  of  using 
up  of  nerve  substance.  "The  changes  of  both  organs 
can,  despite  their  frequent  combination,  be  the  inde- 
pendent expression  of  age  and  quite  independent  one 
from  the  other." 

Every  study  of  the  psychosis  of  regression  and  age 
must  start  from  this  fact  and  we  must  seek  to  dis- 
tinguish the  forms  of  weakness  of  old  age  due  to  central 
tissues  from  those  that  have  their  cause  in  the  primary 
weakness  of  the  blood  vessels.  For  sclerotic  senile 
dementia  anatomy  has  already  more  or  less  basis.  For 
the  various  forms  of  brain  sclerosis  it  is  now  possible 
to  propose  an  anatomical  diagnosis,  although  it  is  impos- 
sible to  have  a  very  definite  clinical  picture  of  what  takes 
place. 

Outside  these  two  chief  groups  of  organically  con- 
ditioned psychosis  and  degeneration  there  are  many 
processes  not  yet  certainly  determined  anatomically. 
These  belong  neither  to  sclerotic  brain  disease  nor  to 
proper  senile  dementia.  They  differ  also  in  their  gen- 
eral aspects  from  the  average  case  of  the  imbecility  of 
old  age,  and  if  they  are  classified  with  it,  this  rests  only 
on  superficial  grounds  and  it  is  the  problem  of  patholog- 
ical anatomy  to  help  clear  up  this  clinical-psychological 
question.  It  is  a  little  here  as  with  innate  and  childish 
mental  weakness,  which  we  anatomically  distinguish  as 
idiocy  and  imbecility  with  partial  success,  just  as  we  are 

215 


SENESCENCE 

trying  to  distinguish  the  psychosis  of  old  age  to  make  it 
conform  to  anatomical  principles. 

With  the  great  recent  progress  of  anatomy  we  are 
just  at  the  beginning  here,  the  chief  result  so  far  being 
the  possibility  of  distinguishing  senile  involution  and  its 
morbid  traits  with  a  view  to  eventually  being  able  to 
make  an  anatomical  differential  diagnosis,  such  as  we 
must  do  to  really  get  at  the  root  of  the  problem  of  senile 
dementia.  From  this  point  of  view  other  processes  can 
readily  be  derived,  and  some  of  them  histologically,  like 
regression.  The  anatomical  investigation  stands  in  tem- 
poral relations  with  the  idea  of  senile  dementia  and  it 
must  be  defined  or  widened  enough  to  do  this.  Perhaps 
we  shall  be  able  to  have  a  good  anatomical  picture  of 
senile  dementia  beginning  with  the  fifth  and  sixth  decen- 
nium  and  even  to  explain  atypical  forms  and  show  their 
relation  with  the  central  system. 

Here,  then,  the  author,  starting  from  an  anatomical 
basis,  begins  with  a  study  of  forms  that  are  atypical 
in  localization,  intensity,  or  temporal  onset.  Then  he 
can  discuss  the  mental  diseases  that  are  based  on 
sclerosis.  So  he  first  discusses  briefly  those  psychoses 
that  rest  upon  clearly  recognizable  but  not  yet  very  dis- 
tinctly determined  brain  troubles  that  deviate  from  the 
ordinary  senile  processes  and  those,  which  so  far  as 
we  can  now  see,  are  really  sclerotic.  Then  the  long 
series  of  psychoses,  the  anatomical  substratum  of  which 
we  do  not  yet  know,  and  the  functional  processes  of 
this  age  can  be  discussed.  In  doing  this,  more  than 
in  the  case  of  many  organic  processes,  we  shall  find  a 
great  difficulty  in  proving  for  such  diseases  their  specific 
senile  or  climacteric  character.  We  shall  constantly  face 
the  objection  that  we  have  here  to  do  only  with  mental 
diseases  that  usually  come  in  other  ages  and  only  have 
peculiar  traits  on  account  of  the  age  of  the  patient,  as 
is  the  case  with  many  depressive  and  paranoiac  symp- 

216 


MEDICAL  VIEWS  AND  TREATMENT 

torn-complexes  of  regression  that  resemble  those  of  age. 

Thus  the  distinction  of  regressive  psychoses  from 
senile  changes,  this  author  thinks,  cannot  be  carried 
through  by  grouping  them  in  the  decennia  in  which  they 
arise.  It  would  be  better  to  distinguish  them  as  progres- 
sive and  incurable,  or  otherwise,  but  this  could  be  done 
only  with  further  distinction  of  our  anatomical  and 
clinical  data  and  we  shall  perhaps  still  lack  that  for  a 
long  time. 

When,  therefore,  in  these  regressions  we  start  from 
anatomy  and  the  psychoses  connected  with  it  at  this 
age  of  life,  we  may  seem  to  overestimate  the  achieve- 
ments of  histology.  We  at  any  rate  do  not  underestimate 
our  ignorance  here.  But  with  the  great  confusion  of 
opinions  based  on  clinical  observations  we  believe  we 
are  justified  in  this  point  of  departure.  Ultimately 
anatomy  will  very  likely  be  our  guide  in  all  clinical  work 
as  well  as  in  the  field  of  psychiatry,  physiology,  and 
psychology.  We  shall  doubtless  also  learn  very  much 
more  about  the  localization  in  which  the  degenerative 
processes  of  age  begin. 

Senile  Dementia. — Textbooks  and  articles  on  old  age 
generally  state  that  the  changes  in  psychic  personality 
that  occur  are  identical  with  normal  ones,  only  in  inten- 
sified degree.  The  traits  most  commonly  specified  are: 
limitation  of  the  circle  of  ideas,  qualitative  and  quantita- 
tive loss  of  elasticity,  pauperization  of  interests,  dwelling 
on  gemiitlicher  activity,  lapses  in  attention,  Ziehen's 
"egocentric  narrowing  of  the  life  of  feeling,"  perhaps 
hypochondriacal  symptoms,  mistrust,  inflexibility,  low- 
ered power  of  activity,  and  resistance  against  every- 
thing that  is  new.  Works  in  general  pathology,  like 
Hiibner,  Ranschenburg,  Balint,  and  Lieske  deal  with 
these  in  more  detail. 

In  general,  there  is  a  sinking  of  psychic  activity  and 
change  of  character  which  suggest  physiological  involu- 
217 


SENESCENCE 

tion,  and  these  occur — in  some,  earlier,  and  in  some 
later.  If  we  compare  these  psychic  traits  it  would  seem 
that  there  is  only  a  quantitative  difference  between 
normal  old  age  and  senile  dementia,  the  latter  having 
only  gone  farther  or  faster.  The  decision  of  this  ques- 
tion is  for  pathological  anatomy  and  here  Spielmeyer's 
studies  coincide  with  those  of  Simchowicz.  The  older 
an  individual  is,  the  less  sharply  either  clinically  or 
anatomically  can  it  be  decided  whether  it  is  normal  or 
senile  dementia.  There  are  the  same  changes  in  the 
nerve  cells,  neuroglia,  the  myelin  sheaths,  and  the  meso- 
derm  tissues;  also  in  the  blood  vessels  the  changes  are 
identical,  the  difference  being  only  in  degree.  Fatty 
degenerations  of  the  ganglion  cells  also  occur  in  both. 
Sclerotic  changes  of  elements  are  general.  The  neurog- 
lia cells  with  normal  seniles  have  lipoidal  material  in 
abundance,  and  the  gliafibers,  especially  in  their  upper 
surfaces  in  the  cortex,  are  increased.  The  walls  of  the 
blood  vessels  have  undergone  the  same  regressive 
changes  and  acquired  the  same  fatty  material  by  infil- 
tration, and  even  the  so-called  senile  plaques  are  found. 
Thus  in  general  there  is  the  same  using  up  of  the  central 
organs.  We  are,  thus,  not  yet  in  a  position  to  determine 
from  the  brain  alone,  if  we  know  nothing  of  the  in- 
dividual, whether  he  was  a  senile  dement  or  a  very  old 
man.  The  older  a  man  is,  the  more  we  find  the  Redlich- 
Fischer  plaques.  Thus  the  senile  dement  shows  neither 
anatomically  nor  clinically  any  essential  differences  from 
those  found  in  the  normal  senium. 

I.  L.  Nascher9  thinks  that  too  little  study  has  been 
given  to  the  physical  changes  in  involution  and  still  less 
to  the  mental.  Occasionally  the  approach  of  senile  de- 
mentia gives  rise  to  forensic  questions.  There  is  a  general 
neglect  of  the  subject  of  geriatrics.  This  author  thinks 

•  "Senile  Mentality,"  Inter.  Clin.,  vol.  4,  1916,  p.  48. 
218 


MEDICAL  VIEWS  AND  TREATMENT 

the  brain  reaches  its  limit  of  physical  development  at 
about  30,  but  Bunsen  and  Mommsen  both  did  much  of 
their  best  work  after  their  brain  had  grown  quite 
atrophied,  so  that  quality  comes  in.  The  integrity  of 
these  cells  depends  upon  nutrition.  We  have  few  blood 
examinations  of  the  aged  and  these  do  not  show  any 
marked  clinical  or  microscopic  differences  between  ma- 
turity and  senility,  while  the  process  of  senile  involution 
rests  apparently  on  defective  nutrition  of  cell  tissues. 
Those  who  do  good  work  in  age  generally  focus  into  one 
channel  and  their  degeneration  is  shown  in  other  fields. 
We  usually  do  not  think  of  our  somatic  state  until  some 
discomfort  compels  us  to  do  so.  One  may  have  lessened 
interest  in  former  hobbies  or  events  of  the  day;  but  if 
impairment  of  reason  keeps  pace  with  that  of  memory, 
he  will  not  know  that  his  powers  are  failing.  He  then 
begins  to  think  of  his  body  and  its  preservation  as  more 
important  than  wealth  or  fame,  wants  to  live,  and  gives 
more  attention  to  prolonging  life. 

There  is  often  a  change  of  temperament  into  egoism, 
perverseness,  peevishness,  loss  of  ambition,  religiosity, 
inability  to  bear  slight  discomforts  and  depression.  The 
child  thinks  little  of  the  future,  while  in  maturity  hope 
tends  to  paint  a  future  haloed  by  happiness  and  in 
senility  the  future  is  death,  notwithstanding  what  all 
philosophers,  poets,  and  preachers  say.  Our  mental  at- 
titude is  simply  a  resignation  to  the  inevitable.  One 
patient  had  a  daughter  devoted  to  him  whose  absence 
for  a  moment  he  could  not  bear,  and  once  this  so  angered 
him  that  his  total  attitude  toward  her  changed  to  one 
of  dislike  and  suspicion.  In  another  case  a  woman  of 
seventy-six  underwent  a  complete  change  of  character. 
Arrogance  gave  way  to  humility;  in  contrast  to  her 
former  independence,  she  now  craved  sympathy.  Then 
later  she  changed  again  and  made  extraordinary  de- 
mands upon  her  children,  wanted  the  latest  styles  in 
219 


SENESCENCE 

everything,  etc.  In  another  case  memory,  reason,  and 
will  grew  weak  in  an  old  manufacturer.  He  lost  his 
way  on  the  street,  a  child  could  divert  him  from  his 
purpose,  and  he  clung  to  a  notebook  by  day  and  night 
till  complete  dementia  came.  Another  man  who  was 
noted  for  carrying  through  everything  he  planned,  even 
breaking  up  partnerships,  when  old  became  not  only 
susceptible  to  advice  but  could  be  easily  turned  from  his 
purpose. 

Thus  senile  mentality  shows  temperamental  changes. 
There  is  introspection,  with  natural  fears  and  unnatural 
phobias,  hope  for  strength  and  vitality  or  even  for 
beauty,  and  often  overweaning  biophilism.  Action  is 
slow;  fatigue,  quick.  The  mind  may  be  often  trivial 
on  all  other  matters  but  yet  sound  in  the  center  of  in- 
terest. Personal  attainments  and  achievements  are  often 
magnified,  and  complaints  are  exaggerated  as  calls  for 
sympathy.  Moral  deterioration  may  be  first.  Lapses 
are  condoned  that  were  once  condemned.  The  old  man 
may  slowly  come  to  take  interest  in  what  is  low  and 
vulgar.  This  moral  decadence  is  entirely  apart  from 
the  pathological  condition  in  which  the  cceundi  potentia 
is  lost  while  the  desire  remains,  and  the  recrudescence 
of  desire  may  occur  in  the  senile  climacteric  but  is  a  fore- 
runner of  senile  dementia. 

The  aesthetic  sense  causes  the  old  often  to  neglect 
cleanliness  in  person  and  clothes,  to  be  untidy  in  their 
room,  expectorate,  scratch  in  public,  make  disagreeable 
sounds,  and  disregard  proprieties  generally.  Women 
show  these  traits,  but  in  less  degree,  and  depression  is 
less  pronounced.  There  is  no  sudden  realizing  of  aging 
and  fear  of  death  is  more  often  overcome  by  religion. 
Sometimes  the  intellectual  faculties  deteriorate  more 
rapidly,  but  moral  and  aesthetic  impulses  change  less. 
Sometimes  old  women  take  greater  care  of  their  appear- 
ance and  seem  to  be  vain  and  to  fight  old  age.  Men  occa- 

220 


MEDICAL  VIEWS  AND  TREATMENT 

sionally  at  a  great  age  take  a  new  interest  in  their  ap- 
pearance, dyeing  their  hair  and  becoming  dandified, 
which  may  show  recrudescence  of  sex. 

After  the  climacteric  depression  may  pass  to  apathy. 
Death  is  less  fearful  as  the  mind  weakens;  there  is  less 
concern  for  the  future  and  life  is  more  in  the  present. 
Even  early  recollections  grow  dim,  although  such  cases 
may  be  roused  momentarily.  There  may  be  marked 
preference  for  association  with  children.  There  may 
also  be  childish  acts  and  garrulity.  The  family  history 
given  the  physician  by  an  elderly  patient  is  often  unre- 
liable. Insignificant  symptoms  are  magnified;  so  are 
former  attainments.  Old  patients  often  claim  they  pos- 
sessed wonderful  constitutions,  perhaps  that  they  were 
never  ill,  despite  indubitable  marks  of  disease. 

In  homes  for  the  aged  there  is  much  suggestion.  If 
one  scratches,  the  rest  do,  without  pruritus,  so  that  to 
isolate  the  author  of  this  contagion  cures  it.  The  same 
is  true  of  groaning  and  grunts  and  even  tremor  may  be 
acquired  by  association.  In  one  case,  cutting  off  food 
stimulated  to  overcome  tremor.  Pain,  cough,  and  stiff- 
ness are  magnified  for  sympathy.  The  fear  of  pain  of 
an  operation  may  cause  the  denial  or  hiding  of  symp- 
toms, although  weakened  mentality  makes  sense  impres- 
sion less  acute,  either  from  peripheral  or  central  causes, 
so  that  it  is  hard  to  tell  whether  this  is  due  to  local 
anaesthesia  or  weakened  mentality.  Tests  used  for 
malingerers  may  be  necessary  to  determine  sensitiveness 
and  other  symptoms  or  even  harshness  and  threats  may 
bring  out  the  truth.  Though  cruel,  these  are  sometimes 
necessary  for  correct  diagnosis. 

Friends  often  observe  changes  sooner  than  the  imme- 
diate family  but  the  latter  must  corroborate  the  state- 
ments. The  physician  should  determine  if  an  oikiomania 
exists  and  so  must  be  alone  with  the  patient,  as  he  will  not 
encourage  such  an  attitude  in  the  presence  of  the  object  of 

221 


SENESCENCE 

his  hatred.  If  the  physician  tries  to  reason  him  out  of  his 
delusion,  he  thinks  he  is  in  league  with  the  hated  person 
and  therefore  hates  him  more.  If  the  physician  has  in- 
curred the  patient's  dislike,  he  should  leave  him  for  a  few 
days  so  that  he  may  forget.  Sometimes  the  dislike  of  see- 
ing the  doctor  grows  from  day  to  day.  One  had  a  suspi- 
cion that  the  doctor  was  in  league  with  a  daughter,  and 
so  put  him  out.  A  few  days  later  the  doctor  was  called 
for,  and  only  when  the  wife  told  the  patient  why  he 
would  not  come  did  he  remember  his  suspicions  and 
thereafter  refuse  to  see  him.  In  one  case,  having  in- 
curred an  old  woman's  displeasure  by  excusing  her  son, 
whom  she  feared,  the  doctor  left  and  was  soon  called 
again,  all  being  forgotten.  The  person  hated  should 
stay  away  and  the  dislike  may  pass,  especially  in  the 
case  of  a  physician  who  has  been  necessary  to  the  patient. 

The  great  factor  is  the  senile's  sense  of  dependence 
on  others.  The  old  man  does  not  realize  that  one  more 
mouth  means  less  food  for  the  children  or  that  his  care- 
lessness makes  work  or  his  peculiarities  alienate  sym- 
pathy and  affection.  Perhaps  he  feels  he  is  a  burden 
and  his  death  would  be  a  relief  to  those  for  whom  he 
provided  in  earlier  years.  So  delusions  of  persecution 
may  arise. 

What  can  we  do?  Symptoms  are  often  bettered  at 
an  asylum.  Phobias  vanish  and  so  do  fears  for  the 
immediate  future.  All  energies  may  be  guided  to  one 
channel  and  the  person  may  be  made  useful  and  his  fear 
of  being  useless  thus  cured.  The  old  are  thus  often 
anxious  to  do  little  services  to  show  they  are  not  worth- 
less and  little  tasks  can  occupy  them  without  strain.  A 
patient  pensioned  after  sixty-five  years  of  work  could 
get  no  other  employment,  felt  useless,  instead  of  being 
cheery  became  depressed,  and  was  cured  by  being  re- 
employed.  The  influence  of  young  people  keeps  up  in- 
terest in  life — especially  marriage  with  a  young  person, 

222 


MEDICAL  VIEWS  AND  TREATMENT 

the  development  of  a  hobby,  collecting  anything,  such 
as  stamps,  coins,  books ;  witnessing  new  sights,  but  not 
fairs,  where  numbers  confuse. 

Drugs  give  temporary  relief.  Small  doses  of  mor- 
phine give  exhilaration  and  arouse  the  imagination,  but 
its  effects  soon  wear  off.  "Phosphorus  in  solution  is 
the  most  effective  drug  for  prolonged  use."  It  is  a 
mental  and  nervous  stimulant  and  aphrodisiac,  increas- 
ing mental  power  and  producing  a  sense  of  well-being. 
One-fiftieth-grain  doses  several  times  a  day,  stopping 
just  as  soon  as  the  intellect  begins  to  brighten,  are  often 
beneficent.  This  can  be  kept  up  for  years.  Perhaps 
amorphous  phosphorus  may  be  used. 

Sir  Dyce  Duckworth10  asks:  Why  are  some  remark- 
ably young  for  their  age  and  others  old?  It  cannot  all 
be  explained  by  anything  in  the  individual  life  or  habits. 
Perhaps  it  is  in  part  because  the  ancestors  lived  a  hard 
life.  We  want  the  degree  of  inherent  vitality  proper  to 
each  individual  patient.  This  would  be  as  important 
for  prognosis  in  pneumonia  as  are  the  hsemic  leucocytes. 
Arterial  hardening  may  be  local  only,  for  example, 
radial.  There  are  two  kinds  of  arterial  degeneration, 
namely,  the  brittle  and  the  tough,  the  former  more  liable 
to  cause  hemorrhages  and  fatty  degeneration. 

Very  important  is  the  discovery  that  the  rigidity  of 
calcified  arteries  is  greatly  increased  immediately  after 
death.  The  lime  is  present  before,  as  disclosed  by  the 
X-rays,  but  it  is  like  wet  or  unset  mortar  and  only  sets 
after  death  under  the  influence  of  carbon  dioxide  and 
the  rapidly  diminishing  alkalinity  of  the  blood.  The 
so-called  air  in  the  arteries  after  death  is  chiefly  carbon 
dioxide  and  this  explains  why  such  arteries  do  not  rup- 
ture so  frequently  as  we  might  expect.  Premature  death 

10  "Some  Clinical  Indications  of  Senility,"  Inter.  Clin.,  vol.  2,  1914,  p.  93. 
223 


SENESCENCE 

of  parts  of  the  body  is  constantly  occurring,  for  example, 
baldness,  teeth.  One  may  be  vulnerable  to  one  and  an- 
other to  another  type  of  injury  or  bacilli.  Syphilis  is 
mainly  a  conjoined  trait  or  infection  and  greatly  pre- 
disposes to  tubercle.  Indeed,  a  syphilitic  patient  may  be 
regarded  as  a  prematurely  aged  one  in  spite  of  a  good 
constitution,  because  there  is  always  the  possibility  of 
sequels  or  parasyphilis,  general  paralysis,  etc. 

Among  the  early  mental  signs  of  interstitial  nephritis 
is  an  explosive  temper.  Fits  of  hilarity  and  weeping 
may  alternate  (first  pointed  out  by  Clifford  Allbutt). 
The  costal  cartilages  ossify  generally  before  the  sixth 
decade  and  this  is  often  premature.  A  hobby  may  no 
longer  avail  to  preserve  mental  activity,  and  "the  golf 
ball  to-day  is  not  seldom  one  of  the  beneficent  agencies 
for  this  purpose."  Cirrhosis  of  the  liver  is  longer 
averted  in  the  patrician  than  in  the  plebeian  because  the 
laborer  becomes  senile  sooner  than  others  owing  to  his 
life  of  strain  in  all  weathers.  In  arthritis,  the  nodosity 
of  joints,  especially  in  the  fingers,  in  the  form  of  Heber- 
den's  nodes,  is  thought  by  some  an  indication  of 
longevity.  They  are  often  found  in  those  who  have 
few  classical  symptoms  of  gout  and  few  reach  eighty 
or  ninety  without  these  trophic  changes.  Dupuytren's 
contractures  and  the  camptodactylia  of  Landouzy,  or 
incurved  little  finger,  are  among  indications  of  a  gouty 
habit  and  are  not  truly  rheumatic  lesions.  Indolence  of 
the  bladder  does  not  imply  prostatic  symptoms.  Very 
common  are  widespread  catarrhal  disturbances,  as  for 
example,  tussis  senilis,  with  much  flux  of  mucus,  often 
rich  in  sodium  chloride.  Fits  of  sneezing,  also  of  hic- 
cough and  even  gaping,  are  frequent. 

The  main  treatment  for  early  senility  is  physiological 
righteousness  (Sir  A.  Clark).  We  must  especially  know 
the  degree  of  vigor,  of  vitality,  and  specific  habit  of  body. 
We  must  pay  attention  to  the  degree  of  blood  pressure 

224 


MEDICAL  VIEWS  AND  TREATMENT 

and  early  indications  of  renal  inadequacy,  orthostatic 
albuminuria,  the  tendency  to  epistaxis,  and  maintain 
as  our  keynote  moderation  in  all  things.  The  best  idea 
is  that  of  universal  service  which  would  bring  all  the 
world  together  on  a  high  plane.  The  author  refers  with 
a  good  deal  of  skepticism  to  Metchnikoff's  Bulgarian 
bacillus  but  mentions  Saundby's  book  with  great  praise. 

Robert  Saundby,  M.D.,11  has  given  us  what  is,  to  date, 
the  best  handbook,  both  for  practitioners  and  for  old 
people  who  are  intelligently  interested  in  conserving 
their  life  and  strength,  on  the  common  infirmities  and 
care  of  the  aged,  exclusive,  for  the  most  part,  of  nervous 
and  psychic  symptoms.  He  first  describes  normal  old 
age,  then  its  diseases  in  successive  chapters — diathetic 
infections,  and  those  of  the  circulatory,  respiratory, 
digestive,  and  genito-urinal  systems.  Perhaps  most  prac- 
tical are  the  dietaries  he  gives  for  different  stages  of 
old  age  and  different  diatheses.  He  commands  a  wide 
knowledge  of  Continental  literature  on  the  subjects  he 
treats.  He  has  a  just  sense  of  the  dangers  of  stressing 
specifics  from,  for  example,  Pythagoras,^  who  thought 
there  was  a  special  virtue  for  longevity  in  honey ;  Bacon, 
in  sweating;  Harvey,  in  avoiding  acids;  down  to  Blan- 
chard,  in  sal  volatile;  blood  drinking  cures,  olive  oil, 
licorice,  etc.  He  believes  that  Metchnikoff's  panacea 
and  the  undue  stress  laid  by  Lorand  on  thyroid  therapy 
have  not  escaped  the  dangers  of  undue  focalization.  He 
allows  a  very  wide  latitude  not  only  in  regimen  and 
exercise  but  food,  condiments,  and  even  stimulants,  for 
the  aged. 

No  one  can  read  his  account  of  the  changes  that  take 
place  in  each  part  and  organ  of  the  body  as  they  are 
successively  described  and  the  very  different  treatments 
that  each  needs  as  it  goes  wrong,  without  a  sense  of 

11  Old  Age:  Its  Care  and  Treatment  in  Health  and  Disease,  London, 
1913.  3«  pp. 

225 


SENESCENCE 

the  fatality  with  which  these  vast  cohorts  of  life-quelling 
symptoms  advance  and,  in  view  of  the  many  strategies 
the  lethal  processes  make  use  of  to  undermine  the 
fortress  of  life,  without  experiencing  a  profound  sense 
of  the  hopelessness  of  watching  out  in  so  many  direc- 
tions and  realizing  that,  as  differentiation  proceeds  in 
the  different  organs,  any  regimen  helpful  to  one  would 
almost  certainly  be  harmful  to  others. 

Arnold  Lorand,  an  Australian  physician,12  bases  his 
work  on  the  principle  that  man  does  not  die  but  kills 
himself.  He  does  not  philosophize  but  tells  us  that  while 
it  is  impossible  to  create  a  young  man  out  of  an  old  one, 
it  is  quite  within  the  bounds  of  possibility  to  prolong  our 
youthfulness  by  ten  or  twenty  years.  In  other  words, 
we  need  no  longer  grow  old  at  forty  or  fifty.  We  may 
live  on  to  the  age  of  90  or  100  years  instead  of  dying 
at  60  or  70.  Old  age  is  just  as  amenable  to  treatment 
as  chronic  diseases.  He  has  great  faith  in  the  present 
possibilities  and  still  larger  hopes  for  the  future  of 
serum  therapy,  for  to  him  life  is  most  of  all  connected 
with  the  glands.  He  discourses  upon  the  hygiene  of 
throat,  lungs,  heart,  kidney,  liver,  stomach,  bowels,  re- 
productive organs,  and  the  rest  with  a  bewildering 
volume  of  details  but  good  perspective,  and  the  reader 
is  again  disheartened  to  find  that  the  treatment  pre- 
scribed for  one  organ  is  deleterious  to  another.  Indeed, 
Lorand's  somewhat  encyclopedic  and  undigested  data, 
despite  the  common  sense  and  practical  spirit  in  which 
they  are  presented,  bear,  on  the  whole,  less  upon 
old  age  itself  than  upon  general  hygiene  at  all  stages  of 
life,  so  that  his  title  is  to  that  extent  a  misnomer. 

He  sums  up  his  practical  conclusions  in  the  form  of 
twelve  commandments,  which  are,  briefly,  to  keep  in 
the  open  and  take  plenty  of  exercise;  eat  according  to 

u  Old  Age  Deferred:  The  Causes  of  Old  Age  and  Its  Postponement  by 
Hygienic  and  Therapeutic  Measures,  Philadelphia,  1911,  572  pp. 

226 


MEDICAL  VIEWS  AND  TREATMENT 

rule;  bathe  and  move  the  bowels  daily;  wear  porous 
underclothes ;  early  to  bed  and  rise ;  sleep  where  it  is  dark 
and  quiet;  rest  one  day  each  week;  avoid  emotional 
strain ;  get  married ;  be  temperate  in  the  use  of  alcohol, 
tobacco,  tea,  and  coffee;  and  avoid  over-eating  and 
-heating. 

T.  D.  Crothers,  M.D.,13  thinks  we  have  not  sufficiently 
considered  the  abilities  of  old  age  from  a  medico-legal 
standpoint.  He  also  thinks  that  if  we  do  not  live  to  be 
100  something  is  wrong  with  us  or  our  ancestors.  We 
all  carry  a  large  reserve  that  many  die  without  drawing 
upon,  and  this  reserve  is  especially  available  in  old  age 
(he  develops  this  point  psychologically).  Many  old 
people  with  melancholia,  hallucinations,  and  the  char- 
acteristic physical  defects  of  old  age  have,  nevertheless, 
a  higher  kind  of  sanity  to  which  their  juniors  do  an 
injustice  by  the  tests  they  propose.  They  are  quite 
capable  of  making  wills  and  otherwise  deciding  the  large 
questions  that  come  before  them  and  often  do  so  from 
a  broader  point  of  view  than  younger  men.  It  is  pos- 
sible, then,  to  rise  to  a  higher  level,  to  a  kind  of  graduate 
school  of  life,  to  use  the  unused,  etc.  Again,  the  varied 
experiences  of  long  life  give  mobility  of  mood  up  and 
down  what  Adler  calls  the  life  line,  so  that  the  old  have 
a  larger  assortment  of  viewpoints  and  even  moods,  to 
say  nothing  of  greater  ups  and  downs  in  horizon  and 
standpoint  generally. 

C.  G.  Stockton,  M.D.,14  suggests  family  records  and 
pride  to  avoid  mixing  good  stock  with  that  which  decays 
early.  He  recognizes  the  great  contributions  of  the  den- 

11  "The  Medical  Significance  of  Old  Age,"  Med.  Press  and  Circ.,  London, 
May  20,  1914. 

14  "The  Delay  of  Old  Age  and  the  Alleviation  of  Senility,"  Jour.  Atner. 
Med.  Assn.,  July  15,  1905. 

227 


SENESCENCE 

list  and  oculist,  deplores  the  neglect  of  old  age,  and 
insists  that  the  aged  do  respond  to  treatment  very  read- 
ily. He  also  deplores  the  attitude  of  many  physicians 
who  discourage  resolute  methods  of  curing  defects  and 
warding  off  evils  because  the  patient  is  old.  He  stresses 
the  value  of  emunctory  procedures  both  within  and 
without 

Dr.  W.  G.  Thompson15  deplores  the  fact  that  physi- 
cians have  given  so  little  attention  to  old  age  and  that 
the  medical  literature  upon  the  subject  is  so  meager. 
The  very  old  have  survived  all  corroborative  evidence 
as  to  their  age,  their  failing  memories  confuse  tradition 
and  fact,  and  they  come  very  often  to  take  pride  in  their 
age  and  so  add  to  it.  The  author's  study  is  based  on 
the  census  statistics  of  1910,  which  record,  from  90-94 
years,  6,175  deaths;  from  95-99,  1,427;  100  years  and 
over,  372.  The  respiratory  diseases  as  a  group  took 
first  rank  as  the  cause  of  death;  organic  heart  disease, 
apoplexy,  and  Bright's  disease  occurring  in  frequency 
in  the  order  mentioned.  Among  diseases  of  the  digestive 
system  enteritis  outranked  all  others. 

As  age  advances  and  its  activities  and  diversions  be- 
come less  and  less,  locomotion  is  reduced,  along  with 
acuteness  of  sight  and  hearing,  and  the  pleasures  of  the 
table  remain  the  only  gratification  of  a  monotonous 
existence.  Very  many  accustom  themselves  to  the 
habitual  use  of  laxatives  to  counteract  the  effects  of 
overeating,  and  often  we  have  obstructions,  especially 
of  the  rectum  or  colon,  that  may  become  fatal.  This, 
however,  is  more  often  seen  in  those  who  eat  too  little 
and  become  perhaps  atrophic  and  marasmic.  These 
people  become  careless  of  matters  of  the  toilet  and  ob- 
structions often  cause  death.  Apoplexy  is  relatively  rare 

""Centenarians  and  Nonagenarians,"  Med.  Rec.,  Feb.  15,  1913. 
228 


MEDICAL  VIEWS  AND  TREATMENT 

among  centenarians  and  carcinoma  also  declines  as  a 
cause  of  death  after  the  ninetieth  year.  Indeed,  the  dis- 
ease that  does  not  develop  until  after  the  ninetieth  year 
can  scarcely  be  due  to  hereditary  factors  and  the  infre- 
quency  of  cancer  in  the  later  stages  of  life  emphasizes 
the  constitutional  resistance  to  extraneous  influences 
that  the  majority  of  centenarians  possess  in  a  high  de- 
gree. Acute  and  very  quick  or  fatal  pneumonia  is  not 
infrequent. 

One  very  peculiar  difficulty  in  treating  old  patients 
is  their  prejudice  and  obstinacy  in  matters  of  diet  and 
hygiene;  because  they  have  lived  so  long  they  naturally 
think  they  know  better  than  anyone  else  what  is  good 
for  them  and,  with  a  certain  irritability,  resist  inter- 
ference. As  a  rule,  they  are  relatively  very  susceptible 
to  the  action  of  drugs  and  two-thirds  of  the  ordinary 
dosage  for  adults  generally  suffices.  Very  often  the 
very  aged  suffer  from  the  neglect  of  personal  cleanliness. 
There  are  many  diseases  common  from  the  sixth  to  the 
ninth  decades  of  life  that  are  very  rare  later,  for  ex- 
ample, tuberculosis.  Suicide  is  very  rare,  the  census 
of  1910  recording  only  one  of  a  centenarian  and  nine 
among  nonagenarians.  The  latter  generally  have  a  long- 
lived  ancestry  and  many  families  are  remarkable  for 
this  trait.  But  this  is  by  no  means  essential.  The  aged 
often  exhibit  no  predominant  symptom  of  any  one  dis- 
ease to  which  their  death  is  attributable,  and  hence 
"senility"  is  so  often  given  as  the  cause  of  death.  Tran- 
quillity, moderation,  and  regularity  seem  to  be  the  chief 
factors  in  securing  a  long  life  and  a  peaceful  death. 

M.  L.  Price,  M.D.,16  attacks  MetchnikofFs  theory  of 
old  age  by  assuming  that  in  addition  to  all  toxins  and 
inflammations  there  is  always  an  old-age  exhaustion  of 

11  "Ancient  and  Modern  Theories  of  Age,"  Maryland  Med.  Jour.,  vol.  49, 
Feb.,  1906. 

229 


SENESCENCE 

a  vital  principle  that  he  calls  bioplasmine,  that  may,  to 
be  sure,  be  mainly  caused  by  Metchnikoff's  agencies  but 
is  equally  affected  by  effort,  exposure,  growth,  and  re- 
production. He  sagely  predicts  that  the  solution  of  the 
problem  of  old  age,  which  he  thinks  is  the  central  theme 
of  all  medicine  in  the  sense  in  which  he  conceives  it, 
because  every  disease  brings  senile  phenomena  to  some 
part  of  the  organism  or  to  the  whole  of  it,  will  be  solved 
by  biochemistry,  although  he  admits  that  it  may  take 
many  generations  of  investigation  to  achieve  this  final 
solution. 

George  S.  Keith,  M.D.,17  after  a  long  life  of  practice, 
has  grown  suspicious  of  current  methods.  "I  purge,  I 
puke,  I  sweat  'em;  and  if  they  die  I  let  'em."  As  to 
foods,  he  believes  that  the  old  should  only  eat  when 
they  are  far  hungrier  than  they  usually  are  and  leave 
off  eating  when  they  now  habitually  begin  a  meal.  Ap- 
petite, which  seems  to  give  momentum  to  all  the  as- 
similative processes,  is  never  utilized  to  its  full  extent. 
Sick  animals  often  go  off  alone  and  succeed  in  recover- 
ing and  he  believes  humans  have  the  same  instinct.  He 
is,  therefore,  bitterly  opposed  to  forced  feeding,  even 
for  the  insane,  save  under  very  exceptional  conditions. 
The  sick  should  generally  be  allowed  to  eat  whatever  they 
wish,  perhaps  in  moderation,  or  to  go  entirely  without 
food.  Probably  primitive  man  and  all  animals  had  to 
undergo  occasional  long  fasts  and  this  serves  to  tone 
up  not  only  the  nerves  but  the  entire  digestive  system. 
Instinct  is  a  far  truer  guide  than  doctors  who  interfere 
with  it  think.  Once  the  fevered  patient  who  reveled 
in  dreams  of  cold  was  kept  warm ;  now  we  know  better. 

This  author  has,  thus,  an  almost  implicit  trust  in  the 
cravings  and  dislikes  of  the  sick  and  would  indulge  them 

"Fads  of  an  Old  Physician  (Sequel  to  Plea  for  a  Simpler  Life),  Lon- 
don, 1897. 

230 


MEDICAL  VIEWS  AND  TREATMENT 

almost  to  the  limit,  as  the  German  hygienist,  Sternberg, 
would  do  to  a  perhaps  even  greater  degree.  He  is  also 
a  great  believer  in  rubbing  and  massage.  Hot  water 
plays  an  important  role,  too,  while  he  attaches  very 
special  value  to  licorice.  Doctors  are  often  too  anxious 
to  save  patients  from  all  pain,  perhaps  by  the  use  of 
means  that  entail  worse  consequences.  Pain  has  its 
place  in  nature  and  the  doctor  should  also  try  to  have 
the  patient  apply  the  cure  of  patience.  Pain  is  nature's 
cry  for  help,  to  which  she  often  responds  as  she  does 
not  to  other  stimuli;  and  benign  as  is  the  role  of  an- 
aesthesia, it  should  not  blind  us  to  the  tonic  effects  pain 
often  exercises.  So  sleeplessness  may  not  be  an  unmixed 
evil  in  certain  cases  and  sleep  artificially  induced  is 
usually  of  poorer  and  less  restorative  quality.  He  has 
found  fixating,  spontaneous  retinal  phosphenes  a  good 
soporific  method.  He  believes  that  very  many  diseases 
would  cure  themselves  if  the  patient  could  be  induced 
to  simply  rest  and  starve.  Although  he  is  not  a  homeo- 
pathist,  he  nevertheless  believes  that  dosages  of  medicine 
are  far  too  large.  He  insists  that  old  and  experiencd 
physicians  ought  to,  and  that  the  best  do,  learn  a  great 
deal  from  experience  in  keeping  themselves  well,  and 
that  every  physician  should  accumulate  thus  a  store  of 
knowledge  based  on  self-observation,  and  may  well,  with 
profit,  always  be  mildly  experimenting  upon  himself.  As 
age  advances  he  would  regulate  diet  and  treatment 
largely  to  the  avoidance  of  accumulation  of  uric  acid 
in  the  system.  He  found  great  reinforcement  for  him- 
self in  making  a  breakfast  of  coffee  only,  etc. 

J.  Madison  Taylor18  notes  the  paucity  of  literature  on 
this  subject  that  he  found  in  trying  to  read  up  on  it 
and  thinks  it  warrants  far  more  attention.  The  founda- 

8  "The  Conservation  of  Energy  in  Those  of  Advancing  Years,"  Pop. 
Sci.  Mo.,  1903. 

231 


SENESCENCE 

tions  for  longevity  are  laid  in  the  first  few  months  of 
life  and  bottle-fed  babies  are  shorter-lived  and  much 
less  likely  to  reach  old  age.  Those  who  spend  their 
infancy  and  childhood,  too,  in  large  centers  are  less 
long-lived  than  those  brought  up  in  the  country.  A 
serene  mental  view  and  capacity  for  deliberate  enjoy- 
ment of  whatever  betides  he  places  first  of  all  and  advises 
self-education  in  serenity.  The  less  we  eat  and  the  less 
variety,  the  longer  we  live,  and  on  this  the  author  lays 
great  stress.  We  must  put  aside,  as  we  advance,  some 
articles  of  diet  of  which  we  are  fond. 

He  believes  dentists  have  greatly  interfered  with 
longevity  because  man  was  meant  to  be  more  or  less 
toothless  and  thus  to  be  reduced  in  old  age  to  childish 
diet  and  fluids,  while  the  dentists  enable  us  to  eat  any- 
thing we  ever  did,  which  is  against  Nature.  He  speaks 
of  fads  and  their  dangers,  for  example,  one  old  lady 
thought  she  prolonged  her  life  by  eating  a  great  deal 
of  salt.  The  indolence  and  indifference  of  age  is  a  great 
difficulty.  If  one  persists  in  trying  to  keep  up  indefi- 
nitely, the  results  are  often  amazing.  Medical  aid  should 
be  sought  more  constantly  for  lesser  ills.  Man  is  like 
an  old  horse — if  he  once  gets  thoroughly  out  of  condi- 
tion it  is  hard  to  bring  him  back.  G.  M.  Gould  has 
believed  that  unfit  glasses  have  shortened  the  lives  of 
many  eminent  men.  But  open  air  is  a  sine  qua  non 
always. 

Tessier  gives  a  clinical  picture  of  approaching  death 
— (i)  heart  and  blood  vessels,  (2)  lungs,  (3)  kidneys, 
(4)  digestive  organs,  (5)  the  brain.  Most  agree  that 
the  heart  plays  the  chief  role  in  ending  life  and  many 
used  to  think  that  nearly  all  old-age  diseases  were  from 
arterial  hardening.  But  this  was  doubtless  much  exag- 
gerated. Old  age  is  a  progressive  diminution  of  all 
functional  activities.  All  clinicians  recognize  diatheses 
or  a  tendency  toward  disease  and  we  can  detect  them 

232 


MEDICAL  VIEWS  AND  TREATMENT 

in  their  incipiency  now  far  more  than  formerly.  Age 
diathesis  means  a  lessened  coefficient  of  resistance,  quick 
exhaustion,  and  weak  repair.  The  author  devotes  great 
attention  to  obesity,  which  shortens  life,  and  he  advo- 
cates various  exercises  of  the  extensor  muscles,  deep 
breathing,  and  thinks  much  can  be  done  to  tone  up  and 
increase  the  activity  of  the  heart. 

He  thinks  the  effects  of  the  menopause  have  been 
rather  overestimated.  Exhaustion,  especially  induced 
by  emotions,  fatigue,  anger,  grief,  and  fear,  weaken  the 
protective  powers  of  the  mysterious  agents  of  immunity. 
The  mind  is  very  liable  to  become  fixed  upon  some  ail- 
ment and  hyper-conscious,  particularly  near  the  meno- 
pause, and  this  is  due  to  failure  of  the  organism  to  offer 
the  same  degree  of  resistance  to  toxins  and  to  a  general 
lessening  of  functional  activity. 

He  thinks  we  can  postpone  old  age  by  the  following 
agencies.  We  should  develop,  not  discourage,  bodily 
exercise  for  without  it  there  is  a  slow  retrogressive 
change.  The  more  nearly  the  diet  is  reduced  to  bread, 
milk  and  fruit,  the  longer  the  person  will  live  and  enjoy 
good  health.  Some  can  go  for  long  intervals  without 
feeding  though  more  tnrive  on  small  quantities  taken 
frequently.  He  condemns  all  purgatives  and  would 
regulate  by  salads,  nuts,  fruit,  and  thinks  the  best  drink 
is  buttermilk,  which  has  salutary  effects  on  both  bowels 
and  kidneys.  Next  comes  koumyss.  Fluids  are  best 
taken  in  abundance,  but  if  the  heart  is  weak  they  should 
be  avoided  before  exercise,  for  this  increases  the  cardiac 
strain.  If  the  skin  is  dry,  he  advocates  dry  rubs  rather 
than  cold  baths  and  olive  oil  occasionally,  of  which  he 
says  it  is  amazing  how  much  the  skin  will  absorb.  He 
speaks  emphatically  of  the  dangers  of  chills  and  of  the 
trend  of  all  tissues  to  harden,  stiffen,  or  lose  their  elas- 
ticity. Tissues  about  the  neck  are  particularly  prone  to 
lose  vigor.  Regulated  movements  of  the  neck  and  upper 

233 


SENESCENCE 

truncal  muscles  often  improve  hearing,  vision,  cerebra- 
tion, and  sleep,  and  the  same  is  true  of  friction.  Most 
digestive  disturbances,  even  those  of  early  middle  life, 
are  due  to  relaxation  of  the  supporting  tissues  of  the 
great  organs  in  the  abdomen.  This  dilation  is  found  in 
at  least  60  per  cent  of  adults,  and  it  produces  a  long 
train  of  alterations.  The  kidneys  are  supported  mainly 
by  their  blood  vessels,  so  that  if  they  sag  their  circula- 
tion is  impaired,  and  this  kind  of  ptosis  is  very  common. 
Hence  faulty  attitudes  are  very  important  for  all  vis- 
ceral ptoses,  while  he  finds  much  to  commend  in  the 
use  of  abdominal  corsets,  even  for  fleshy  men.  Elas- 
ticity of  the  ribs  should  receive  attention  and  the  author 
prides  himself  on  exercises  that  increase  the  elasticity 
of  the  basal  tissues  which  sclerosis  is  prone  to  assail. 
The  capacities  of  individuals  for  exercise  in  the  open 
air  can  generally  lessen  the  need  of  medical  supervision. 
With  old  people,  the  extensors  should  receive  more,  and 
the  flexors,  less  attention  and  there  should  be  sufficient 
stretching,  torsion,  etc. 

As  to  the  senile  heart,  it  is  generally  assumed  that  the 
old  should  do  no  more  than  they  are  inclined  to  do  and 
perhaps  even  lead  a  vegetable  existence.  But  he  believes 
that  disinclination  to  movement  means  and  makes  under- 
oxidization  and  causes  decay  and  he  is  severe  on  what 
he  calls  senile  laziness.  The  healthier  and  happier  old 
people  are,  the  more  active  they  become.  The  life  of  a 
hothouse  plant  is  bad.  Humphry  found  in  most  old 
people  he  examined  little  or  no  change  in  the  arterial 
system.  Allbutt  says  there  are  many  old  people  in  whom 
there  is  no  arteriosclerosis.  One  common  phenomenon 
of  old  age  is  the  loss  of  vascular  tone  and  defective 
lymph  circulation.  The  bones  lose  weight  and  size  and 
the  walls  of  the  shaft  grow  thin  from  within,  especially 
toward  the  end  of  the  bones  and  most  near  the  head 
of  the  femur.  Trunecek  of  Prague  emitted  the  thesis 

234 


MEDICAL  VIEWS  AND  TREATMENT 

that  certain  salts  can  be  introduced  into  the  blood  cur- 
rent that  aid  in  dissolving  the  calcium  phosphate  found 
in  the  structure  of  sclerosed  arteries.  So  he  injected 
hypodermically  a  strong  solution  of  sodium  phosphate 
and  magnesium  phosphate,  which  are  normally  found  in 
the  blood  serum  but  only  in  minute  quantities.  Others 
have  introduced  this  by  both  bowel  and  mouth.  Any- 
thing that  aids  oxidation  of  tissues  helps. 

In  another  article19  Taylor  says  almost  nothing  that 
is  new  although  there  is  much  that  would  be  practical 
to  aging  people.  The  machinery  has  become  a  little 
worn  and  weaker  in  spots  but  the  bare  surfaces  have 
been  abraded  to  meet  each  other  so  that  there  is  less 
friction  and  racking  of  the  joints.  The  body  cells 
are  less  irritable.  Degenerative  diseases  are  very 
insidious.  They  increase  in  the  following  order 
— liver,  digestion,  apoplexy,  nerves,  heart,  kidneys. 
One's  enjoyment  of  food  is  greater  perhaps  than  dis- 
criminative. Many  reminders  of  age  are  overcome  by 
warming  up.  Skin  emanations  may  be  offensive.  Traits 
of  a  mature  mind  are  poise,  deliberation,  economy  and 
the  largest  output  of  judgment,  like  the  Roman  senators 
or  seniors.  Irritability  is  common.  Youth  wants  to 
know;  age  wants  to  be. 

C.  A.  Ewald,20  one  of  the  most  eminent  of  German 
professors  of  biology,  gives  us  one  of  the  most  con- 
densed statements  on  the  subject  of  old  age.  He  begins 
by  contrasting  the  intense  life  of  Berlin,  where  the  lecture 
was  given,  with  the  fact  that  all  paths  lead  to  the  door 
of  death,  which  is  nearest  in  war.  The  antique  concep- 
tion of  death  was  youth  with  a  reversed  torch;  the 
medieval,  a  skeletal  mower  taking  pleasure  in  his 

19  "Evidences  of  Full  Maturity  and  Early  Decline,"  Pof>.  Set.  Mo.,  1917, 
p.  411. 

20  Ubcr  Altern  und  Stcrbcn,  Wien,  1913,  33  pp. 

235 


SENESCENCE 

work.  The  martyr's  love  of  death  and  even  the  passion 
for  Nirvana  are  probably  more  or  less  pathological.  If 
we  assume  1 5,000  million  people  on  the  earth  and  a  death 
rate  of  30  million  per  year,  we  should  have  81,192  deaths 
daily;  3,425,  hourly;  and  57  every  minute.  The  baobab 
tree  of  Cape  Verde  shows  a  life  of  5,000  years.  Some 
have  ascribed  500  to  the  swan.  But  nearly  all  data  of 
great  age  are  discredited.  Even  that  of  Parr  (152), 
who  married  with  potence  at  120,  and  all  the  rest,  are 
doubted.  But  the  length  of  life  is  increasing.  In  Sweden, 
of  every  100  children  of  five  at  the  beginning  of  the 
last  century,  27  reached  70;  at  the  end  of  the  century, 
48  did  so.  In  Bavaria  the  number  increased  from  25 
to  40 ;  in  Germany,  in  the  last  twenty  years,  it  increased 
from  30  to  39,  so  that  we  all  have  a  better  chance  of 
living  long  than  we  would  have  had  if  we  had  been 
born  a  hundred  years  earlier.  The  average  length  of 
life  in  1870  in  Germany  was  37  years  and  has  now 
increased  to  42^2.  In  France  and  England  it  is  46  and 
in  Norway  and  Sweden,  52.  Cures  of  tuberculosis  in 
the  last  twenty  years  have  reduced  the  percentage  of  its 
victims  from  31  to  17  per  10,000,  and  vaccination  has 
reduced  the  death  per  million  from  smallpox  to  5 ;  while 
in  Russia,  where  it  is  not  compulsory,  it  is  520.  A  priori, 
death  does  not  seem  necessary  and  yet  for  even  protozoa 
division  often  involves  something  like  a  very  rudimen- 
tary corpse  so  that  investigators  like  Gotte,  Hertwig, 
and  Verworn  accept  the  tenet  of  Weismann,  with  some 
slight  reservation,  if  the  corpse  is  to  be  taken  as  the 
criterion  of  death. 

Bees  and  the  stork  and  other  birds  of  passage  kill 
or  neglect  their  old,  while  in  ancient  German  myth  old 
men  often  slew  themselves  for  the  good  of  the  com- 
munity. Certain  species  eat  their  young  rather  than 
die  themselves  and  even  this  is  for  the  interest  of  the 
species.  A  certain  wasp  lays  its  eggs  in  the  female  plant 

236 


MEDICAL  VIEWS  AND  TREATMENT 

and  its  young,  when  covered  with  its  pollen,  fly  to  a 
male  plant  to  fertilize  it,  although  this  means  their  death. 
Thus  death  is  a  normative  factor  of  development  and 
to  this  extent  Weismann  is  correct.  Life  has  three 
periods.  In  the  first  there  is  an  excess  of  energy  and 
growth;  then  comes  middle  age  with  an  equilibrium, 
while  in  old  age  the  relation  of  these  energies  is  reversed, 
so  that  the  first  and  third  stages  contradict  each  other. 
But  everywhere  life  is  dependent  on  nutrition  and  all 
death,  in  whatever  form,  is  due  to  its  lack.  So  we  have 
a  kind  of  biological  circulation  and  a  kilogram  of  body 
substance  evolves  a  different  sum  of  total  energy  in  each 
of  these  periods  of  life.  The  author  gives  us  an  in- 
teresting cut  of  the  contraction  of  the  vertebrae  and 
their  padding,  which  often  in  the  old  means  ankylosis 
in  the  lower  part  of  the  spinal  column. 

He  dissents  from  the  Conklin  theory  of  the  abatement 
of  metabolism  as  a  cause  of  old  age  because  he  thinks 
this  activity  has  a  wide  range  of  play  at  all  stages  of 
life,  monthly  and  even  daily.  Nor  does  he  accept  with- 
out modification  the  Schilddruse  (thyroid)  theory,  al- 
though admitting  that  the  endocrine  glands  play  a  very 
important  function.  Nor  does  he  accept  Von  Hanse- 
mann's  view  of  altruistic  nutritive  disturbance,  namely, 
that  single  cell  groups  are  more  or  less  reciprocally 
dependent  upon  others  for  their  activity  so  that  they 
in  a  sense  work  for  each  other.  The  physiological  (that 
is,  without  outer  stimulation)  collapse  of  groups  of  cells 
is  especially  connected  with  the  generative  cells  and  their 
departure  reacts  upon  the  nutrition  of  the  whole  body 
and  in  a  sense  weakens  it  (the  atrophy  of  age).  The 
loss  of  the  generative  cells  is  physiological  because  they, 
in  departing  from  the  body,  represent  the  growth  of  a 
ne-v  organism.  Hansemann  gives  countless  examples 
but  they  affect  only  the  fact  and  not  the  kind  or  method 
of  growing  old,  which  is  a  progressive  process,  and  we 

237 


SENESCENCE 

still  are  unable  to  answer  the  question  why  the  genera- 
tive cells  in  the  ordinary  process  of  life  are  so  soon 
destroyed  or  why  so  few  of  them  are  devoted  to  this 
purpose. 

The  author  sees  much  truth  in  Minot's  differentiation 
or  cytomorphosis  of  cells,  according  to  which  differen- 
tiation, which  causes  growth,  is  also  the  cause  of  death. 
Minot  himself  says  that  the  biologist  can  no  more  grasp 
the  essence  of  death  than  he  can  that  of  life.  Science 
does  not  know  the  difference  between  these  two  despite 
the  impulsions  of  our  causal  instinct.  Horsley  thinks 
the  condition  for  a  green  old  age  is  the  conservation 
of  a  sound  thyroid.  With  its  activity  is,  of  course, 
connected  that  of  other  glands. 

He  says  it  might  be  assumed  in  a  period  during  which 
a  whole  generation  dies  that  the  whole  mass  of  putrefac- 
tion would  cause  infection.  But  in  a  half-dozen  German 
cities  very  carefully  investigated  along  this  line  it  was 
found  that  those  who  lived  in  or  near  cemeteries  were 
as  long-lived  as  others  and  even  those  who  drink  water 
that  is  fed  by  drainage  from  well  appointed  graveyards 
are  not  infected;  on  the  contrary,  in  several  places  this 
water  is  purer  than  elsewhere.  There  is  only  one  ex- 
humation in  Germany  for  criminal  purposes  out  of  600,- 
ooo  corpses,  but  poison  that  might  be  detected  by  ex- 
humation cannot,  of  course,  be  traced  after  cremation. 

Instead  of  the  remorse,  anxiety  for  friends,  dread  and 
pain,  the  author,  who  says  he  has  seen  "many,  many 
hundreds  of  deaths,"  never  saw  one  that  was  not  uncon- 
scious. There  are  often,  perhaps  even  for  days,  physical 
signs  of  great  suffering  but  this  is  never  felt;  and  the 
author  advocates  special  death  rooms  in  hospitals  be- 
cause it  is  so  hard  for  onlookers  that  it  is  inhuman  to 
allow  patients  to  die  in  a  ward  with  only  a  screen  in 
front  of  the  bed.  The  review  of  life  by  drowning  people 
is  a  myth.  It  is  the  duty  of  the  doctor  to  mitigate 

238 


MEDICAL  VIEWS  AND  TREATMENT 

closing  pains  by  morphia  and  other  means,  provided 
these  do  not  shorten  but  rather  tend,  as  they  should,  to 
somewhat  prolong  life.  Even  in  death  by  fire  and  tor- 
ture the  last  stages  are  painless. 

The  Kamerlengo  strikes  the  Pope  on  the  forehead 
three  times  with  a  silver  hammer  and  calls  his  name 
and,  if  he  does  not  answer,  says,  "The  Pope  is  really 
dead."  This  is  because  hearing  is  supposed  to  be  the 
last  sense  to  die.  But  often  after  death  the  muscles 
contract  spontaneously,  even  enough  to  move  the  body 
and  this  has  made  survivors  believe  their  friends  were 
alive.  The  muscles  respond  to  electrical  stimuli  for 
hours.  The  pupil  of  beheaded  people  contracts  to  light. 
In  Charlotte  Corday's  head  the  eyes  opened.  Dr.  Rous- 
seau saw  a  case  in  which  the  heart  occasionally  beat 
twenty-nine  hours  after  decapitation.  Generally  death 
proceeds  from  the  heart  and  its  last  beat  marks  the 
entrance  of  death.  Respiration,  too,  or  the  last  breath 
is  often  the  mark  of  death  because  the  carbon  dioxide 
is  not  removed ;  hence  we  say  life  is  in  the  blood.  Every- 
one at  times  wonders  not  only  when  he  will  die  but  how. 
And  it  is  hard  to  live  so  as  to  avoid  pathological  death. 

A  French  nobleman,  Frangois  de  Civille,  in  the  time 
of  Karl  IX,  appended  to  his  monument  the  inscription : 
"Thrice  dead,  thrice  buried,  and  by  the  grace  of  God, 
thrice  revived."  The  riddle  meant  that  he  woke  first 
from  his  mother's  body  at  birth  and  twice  in  war  was 
thought  dead  and  placed  among  the  dead.  But  the  ab- 
sence of  personal  consciousness  is  very  unreliable  be- 
cause after  long  periods  of  lethargy  many  have  rather 
suddenly  revived.  There  never  was  a  doctor  present 
at  an  exhumation  of  a  living  man.  Being  buried  alive 
is  really  a  ghost  that  has  no  justification  in  civilized 
lands.  This  has  nothing  to  do,  of  course,  with  simula- 
tion. Karl  V  simulated  death  in  order  to  enjoy  the 
spectacle  of  his  funeral,  as  Juliet  allowed  herself  to  be 

239 


SENESCENCE 

buried.  By  contraction  of  the  muscles  of  the  neck  and 
deep  respiration  the  heart  can  be  checked  and  the 
physiologist,  Weber,  nearly  lost  his  life  thus.  Dr.  Gosch 
tells  of  a  Colonel  Townsend  who  in  the  presence  of  Prof. 
Cheyne  stopped  his  heart  and  breathing,  the  latter  tested 
by  a  mirror,  for  half  an  hour  until  they  were  all  con- 
vinced he  was  dead.  But  then  he  gradually  came  to, 
though  he  died  eight  hours  later. 

Herter  and  Rovighi  tested  lactic  acid  and  its  effects 
on  fermentation  of  the  large  intestine  and  found  nega- 
tive results,  so  that  we  do  not  have  an  arcanum  against 
death  or  old  age  in  this  sense,  although  insufficient  ex- 
cretion of  toxins  has  much  to  do  with  it. 

In  his  illuminating  articles  Professor  Raymond  Pearl, 
after  showing  the  novelty  of  natural  death  and  how  even 
somatic  cells  now  seem  possibly  immortal  if  separated 
from  the  metazoan  body  and  that  heredity  is  a  prime 
determinant  of  the  length  of  the  span  of  life,  says  we 
must  know  more  of  the  vagaries  of  germ  plasm  before 
society  should  assume  to  control  it,  although  such  control 
sooner  or  later  will  be  necessary.  The  death  rates  for 
the  four  diseases  that  public  health  and  sanitary  activi- 
ties have  been  most  successful  in  treating,  namely,  ( i ) 
tuberculosis  of  the  lungs,  (2)  typhoid  fever,  (3)  diph- 
theria and  croup,  (4)  dysentery,  have  been  materially 
reduced  in  the  last  nineteen  years.  But  if  we  compare 
four  other  causes  of  death,  (i)  bronchitis,  (2)  paralysis, 
(3)  purulent  infection  and  septicemia,  (4)  softening  of 
the  brain,  on  which  health  and  sanitation  have  had  little 
effect,  it  is  found  that  the  rate  of  mortality  from  these 
troubles  has  declined  just  as  much,  and  probably  a  little 
more,  in  the  same  period  of  time,  although  the  numbers 
in  the  latter  group  are  far  less.  "Hence  the  declining 
death  rate  in  and  of  itself  does  not  mark  the  successful 
result  of  human  effort." 

Recognizing  the  fact  that  the  essential  cells  in  our 
240 


MEDICAL  VIEWS  AND  TREATMENT 

body  are  inherently  capable  under  proper  conditions  of 
living  indefinitely,  the  problem  that  confronts  us  is 
whether  environment  or  heredity  has  most  to  do  in  de- 
termining the  actual  length  of  life.  Pearl 21  concludes 
that  the  death  rate  of  the  earliest  period  of  life  is  selec- 
tive, eliminating  the  weak  and  leaving  the  strong,  and 
that  inheritance  is  "one  of  the  strongest  elements,  if  not 
indeed  the  dominating  factor,  in  determining  the  dura- 
tion of  life  of  human  beings." 

The  duration  of  life  in  animals  also  depends  on  the 
total  amount  of  metabolic  activity  or  work  and  it  has 
been  proven  that  rats,  at  least,  live  longer  under  condi- 
tions so  controlled  that  their  activity  is  lessened,  so  that 
the  greater  the  total  work  done  or  total  energy  output, 
the  shorter  is  the  duration  of  life  and  vice  versa,  work 
accelerating  the  aging  process  somewhat  as  rise  of  tem- 
perature does.  Pearl  says:  "The  manner  in  which  the 
environmental  forces  (of  sublethal  intensity  of  course) 
chiefly  act  in  determining  the  duration  of  life  appears 
to  be  chiefly  by  changing  the  rate  of  metabolism  in  the 
individual.  Furthermore,  one  would  suggest,  on  this 
view,  that  what  heredity  does  in  relation  to  duration 
of  life  is  chiefly  to  determine  within  fairly  narrow  limits 
the  total  energy  output  which  the  individual  exhibits  in 
its  lifetime."  The  duration  of  life  of  an  animal  stands 
in  inverse  relation  to  the  total  amount  of  its  metabolic 
activity  or,  put  in  other  words,  to  the  work  in  the  sense  of 
theoretical  mechanics  that  it  as  a  machine  does  during  its 
life.  Or,  to  put  it  in  another  way,  if  the  total  activity  of 
a  unit  of  time  is  increased  by  some  means  other  than  in- 
creased temperature,  the  same  result  appears  as  if  the 
increased  activity  is  caused  by  increased  temperature. 
Pearl  thinks  that  Steinach's  experiments  on  the  sexual 
glands,  whatever  their  results  for  rejuvenation,  do  not 

u  See  his  articles  in  Sci.  Mo.,  March-Sept.,  1921. 
24I 


SENESCENCE 

prove  "any  really  significant  lengthening  of  the  life 
span."  Nor  does  he  think  that  Robertson's  experiments 
with  tethelin  from  the  pituitary  gland,  whatever  its 
effects  upon  growth,  show  that  it  materially  increases 
the  length  of  life  to  a  degree  that  has  much  significance 
statistically,  so  that  inheritance  remains  a  prime  deter- 
minant of  longevity. 

We  are  all  born  in  one  way  but  die  in  many.  By  inter- 
national agreement  a  mortality  code  has  been  developed 
with  fourteen  general  classes  comprising  180  distinct 
units.  Pearl  would  supplement  this  very  unsatisfactory 
classification  by  the  following:  (i)  circulatory  system 
and  blood-forming  organs,  (2)  respiratory  system,  (3) 
primary  and  secondary  sex  organs,  (4)  kidney  and  re- 
lated excretory  organs,  (5)  skeletal  and  muscular  sys- 
tem, (6)  alimentary  tract  and  associate  organs  con- 
cerned with  metabolism,  (7)  nervous  system  and  sense 
organs,  (8)  skin,  (9)  endocrinal  system,  (10)  all  other 
causes.  This  would  show  organological  breakdown 
rather  than  pathological  causation.  The  breakdown  of 
the  respiratory  system  is  the  chief  cause  of  death,  and 
next  comes  that  of  the  alimentary  tract;  these  together 
constitute  half  the  deaths  biologically  classifiable.  Next 
come  troubles  with  the  blood  and  circulation.  We  may 
conceive  these  as  three  successive  defense  lines,  and  it  is 
against  the  first  two  of  these  that  better  health  and 
hygiene  have  been  chiefly  directed,  having  been  most  suc- 
cessful with  the  respiratory  system.  Child-welfare,  both 
pre-  and  post-natal,  is  by  all  odds  the  most  hopeful  direc- 
tion of  public-health  activities.  Pearl's  very  important 
studies  here  confirm  the  conclusions  others  have  reached, 
that  early  pubertal  years  show  the  lowest  mortality  rate, 
and  he  traces  in  detail  for  each  age  of  life  the  mortality 
curves  for  each  of  the  chief  groups  of  disease. 

Very  interesting  are  his  conclusions  touching  the 
embryological  basis  of  mortality  in  which  he  attempts  to 

242 


MEDICAL  VIEWS  AND  TREATMENT 

trace  the  causes  of  death  back  to  the  three  primitive 
tissue  elements,  concluding  that  about  57  per  cent  of  bio- 
logically classifiable  deaths  result  from  the  breakdown 
or  failure  to  function  of  organs  arising  from  the  endo- 
derm,  8  to  13  per  cent  from  those  that  spring  from  the 
ectoderm,  while  the  remaining  30  to  35  per  cent  are  of 
mesodermic  origin.  The  ectoderm  has  been  most  widely 
differentiated  from  its  primitive  condition,  as  best  illus- 
trated by  the  central  nervous  system,  the  endoderm  least 
differentiated,  while  the  mesoderm  is  intermediate  in 
this  respect.  Now,  degrees  of  differentiation  imply 
adaptation  to  the  environment  and  the  endoderm,  which  is 
least  differentiated,  is  least  able  to  meet  vicissitudes. 
"Evolutionary  speaking,  it  is  a  very  old-fashioned  and 
out-of-date  ancestral  relic  which  causes  man  an  infinity 
of  troubles.  Practically  all  public-health  activities  have 
been  directed  toward  overcoming  the  difficulties  which 
arise  because  man  carries  about  this  antediluvian  sort  of 
endoderm."  Prior  to  the  age  of  sixty  the  breakdown  of 
organs  of  endodermic  origin  causes  most  deaths;  next 
come  breakdowns  with  organs  of  mesodermic  origin,  and 
lastly  those  of  ectodermic  origin.  The  rate  for  all  these 
germ  layers  is  relatively  high  in  infancy,  dropping  to  a 
low  point  in  early  youth.  In  infancy  the  chief  mortality 
is  due  to  endodermic  defect;  from  about  the  age  of  12 
on,  to  faults  of  ectodermic,  and  after  about  22  to  those 
of  mesodermic  origin.  The  death-rate  curve  rises  at  a 
practically  constant  rate  to  extreme  old  age.  From  about 
60  to  the  end  of  life  deaths  from  the  breakdown  of 
organs  of  mesodermic  origin  lead.  The  heart  generally 
outwears  the  lungs  and  the  brain  outwears  both  because 
evolution  is  a  purely  mechanical  process  instead  of  being 
an  intelligent  one.  "It  is  conceivable  that  an  omnipotent 
person  could  have  made  a  much  better  machine  as  a 
whole  than  the  human  body  which  evolution  has  pro- 
duced. He  would  presumably  have  made  an  endoderm 

243 


SENESCENCE 

with  as  good  resisting  and  wearing  qualities  as  a  meso- 
derm  or  ectoderm.  Evolution  by  the  haphazard  process 
of  trial  and  error  which  we  call  natural  selection  makes 
each  part  only  just  good  enough  to  get  by."  All  this,  the 
author  believes,  only  strengthens  the  evidence  that  the 
most  important  part  in  longevity  is  played  by  innate  con- 
stitutional biological  factors. 

This  view  so  commonly  held,  that  heredity  is  the  chief 
factor  in  longevity  is  doubtless  correct  in  general.  But 
it  is  fatalistic  and  directly  tends  to  lessen  the  confidence 
of  hygienists  and  physicians  in  the  efficacy  of  all  their 
methods  of  prolonging  life  in  the  aged.  There  is,  we 
think,  good  reason  to  believe  that  there  is  a  great  and 
now  rapidly  growing  number  of  exceptions  to  this  so- 
called  law,  cases  in  which  by  conformity  to  right  rules 
of  living,  age  has  been  increased  many  years  beyond  that 
which  our  forbears  attained.  Indeed,  the  very  fact  of  the 
gradual  prolongation  of  life  shows  that  the  hereditary 
predisposition  to  die  at  a  certain  age  can  be,  to  a  great 
extent,  overcome.  The  psychological  effect  of  this 
dogma  of  the  prepotence  of  heredity  in  determining  the 
length  of  life  is  itself  not  only  depressing  but  may 
readily  become,  as  psychologists  can  best  understand,  a 
dangerous  lethal  agent  with  the  old  and  cause  those  who 
have  reached  the  span  of  years  at  which  their  forbears 
died  to  succumb  to  their  troubles  with  less  resistance. 
Indeed,  it  is  one  of  the  chief  purposes  of  this  volume  to 
show  that  the  old-age  problem  is  not  merely  economic, 
philanthropic,  social,  or  even  medical,  but  also,  when  all 
is  said  and  done,  perhaps  chiefly  psychological  and  that 
the  future  welfare  of  the  race  depends  upon  the  develop- 
ment of  an  old  age  due  not  chiefly  to  heredity  but  to 
better  knowledge  and  control  of  the  conditions  of  this 
state  of  life. 

Senescence  is,  in  no  small  degree,  a  state  of  mind  as 
244 


MEDICAL  VIEWS  AND  TREATMENT 

well  as  a  state  of  body,  and  the  study  of  it  as  such  has 
been  so  far  strangely  neglected  but  is  now  in  order.. 
Even  doctors  who  have  told  us  most  about  it  have  made 
few  intensive  investigations  of  its  nature  and  there  are 
very  few  gerontologists ;  while  the  alienists  who  have 
described  the  senile  psyche  have  done  so  only  in  general 
terms  that  add  but  little  to  what  is  obvious  to  common 
experience  and  observation.  None  have  sought  to  ascer- 
tain empirically  from  intelligent  old  people  capable  of 
telling  how  they  think  and  feel  about  their  stage  in  life, 
or  to  determine  how  far  their  attitude  toward  it  was 
indigenous  and  how  far  it  was  really  due  to  the  accept- 
ance of  current  traditions  that  have  come  down  to  us 
from  a  remote  past  and  that  no  longer  fit  present  con- 
ditions. How  this  old  tradition  still  influences  even 
physicians  may  best  be  shown  by  a  few  instances  that 
have  come  under  my  own  observation.  A  friend  of  73 
fell  sick  of  pneumonia  which  soon  involved  both  lungs. 
The  excellent  family  doctor  had  him  removed  to  a  hos- 
pital where  expert  care  could  be  added  to  his  own.  Soon 
all  hope  of  his  recovery  was  abandoned  and  for  a  week 
friends  who  called  or  telephoned  were  told  that  nothing 
more  could  be  done  and  the  end  was  certain  and  might  be 
expected  any  time.  "He  is  73,  you  know,"  the  doctor 
said.  To-day  he  is  well  and  daily  active  in  the  very  large 
concern  he  created.  The  father  of  an  intimate  friend  at 
the  age  of  69  fell  ill  from  a  complication  of  disorders  the 
family  doctor  diagnosed  as  old  age  and  telegraphed  his 
son  to  hasten  home  from  a  distant  city  if  he  would  see 
him  alive.  Upon  his  arrival,  on  the  morning  of  the  7Oth 
birthday,  he  found  him  half  comatose  and  convinced  that 
this  day  would  be  his  last;  but  he  was  cheered  up, 
diverted,  partook  of  a  stimulated  eggnog,  his  first  food 
for  two  days;  and  when  he  awoke  just  past  midnight 
and  realized  that  he  had  entered  upon  another  decade, 

245 


SENESCENCE 

revived,  made  a  slow  but  surprising  recovery,  and  en- 
joyed not  only  a  comfortable  but  a  very  active  life  for 
nine  years.  He  could  not,  however,  quite  bring  his 
mind  to  enter  the  ninth  decennium.  Strangely  enough, 
my  friend's  mother,  whom  I  had  also  known  all 
my  life,  two  years  later  passed  through  almost  the 
same  experience.  He  was  called  to  her  deathbed, 
reaching  her  three  days  after  all  hope  had  been  aban- 
doned. But  she  recovered  and  was  nearly  as  well  as 
before,  and  lived  seven  years.  A  friend  of  mine  retired 
from  a  college  chair  at  74  and  was  told  that  he  was  worn 
out,  had  several  grave  symptoms,  and  must  drop  work 
and  go  South.  "You  should  be  satisfied,"  his  physician 
told  him,  "with  four  years  beyond  the  allotted  three  score 
and  ten."  But  he  had  unfinished  tasks,  believed  them  to 
be  life-preservers,  and  now  at  82  is  still  engaged  upon 
them.  A  vigorous  old  lady  of  87  has  thrice  been  given 
up  by  her  physician  within  tha  decade.  Are  doctors  a 
little  falsetto  in  their  treatment  of  the  aged  ? 

Seventy  is,  on  the  whole,  the  most  dangerous  milestone 
and  the  morning  of  that  birthday  is  probably  the  saddest 
of  all  that  those  who  attain  it  have  known  or  will  ever 
know.  It  brings  a  new  consciousness  that  now  indeed  we 
are  old ;  and  if  we  still  carry  on  as  before,  we  are  at  least 
under  the  suspicion  of  affecting  a  vigor  that  we  really 
lack  and  are  liable  to  lapse  to  an  apologetic  state  of  mind 
because  we  do  not  step  aside  and  give  our  place  to  our 
juniors  who  often  feel  that  they  have  a  right  to  it,  even 
though  they  try  not  to  show  or  even  confess  it  to  them- 
selves. If  we  make  partial  withdrawal  we  find  insisten- 
cies, conscious  and  unconscious,  in  those  who  supersede 
us  that  we  might  as  well  make  it  complete  and  the  sense 
of  being  superfluous  and  no  longer  needed  is  bitter. 
Complete  retirement  from  all  our  life  work,  whatever  it 
is,  may  make  us  feel  that  we  are  already  dead  so  far  as 

246 


MEDICAL  VIEWS  AND  TREATMENT 

our  further  usefulness  is  concerned.  Yet  at  no  stage  of 
life  do  we  want  more  to  be  of  service  than  when  we  are 
deprived  of  our  most  wonted  opportunities  to  be  so.  We 
do  not  take  with  entire  kindness  and  resignation  to  being 
set  off  as  a  class  apart. 


CHAPTER  VI 

THE  CONTRIBUTIONS  OF  BIOLOGY  AND  PHYSIOLOGY 

Weismann's  immortality  of  the  germ  plasm  and  his  denial  of  the  in- 
heritance of  acquired  qualities — The  truth  and  limitations  of  his  views — 
The  theories  of  Hering  and  Simon — Metchnikoff's  conception  of  the 
disharmonies  in  man,  of  the  role  of  intestinal  flora  and  their  products, 
of  euthanasia,  and  of  the  means  and  effects  of  prolonging  life — C  S. 
Minot's  conception  of  the  progressive  arrest  of  life  from  birth  on  as 
measured  by  declining  rate  of  growth  and  his  neglect  to  consider  the 
dynamic  elements — C.  M.  Child's  studies  of  rejuvenation  in  lower  and 
higher  forms  of  life  in  the  light  of  the  problems  of  senescence— 
J.  Loeb's  studies  of  the  effects  of  lower  temperatures,  of  toxins,  and 
ferments — The  preservation  of  cells  of  somatic  tissues  potentially  im- 
mortal under  artificial  conditions — Account  of  the  studies  of  Carrel, 
Pozzi,  and  others — Investigations  upon  the  effects  on  sex  qualities  and 
age  of  the  extracts  and  transplantations  of  glands,  from  Claude  Bernard 
— Investigations  of  Eugene  Steinach  on  the  interchange  of  sex  qualities 
and  rejuvenation  by  glandular  operations  in  animals  and  man — G.  F. 
Lydston's  work — Serge  Voronoff's  experiments  and  his  exposition  of 
the  achievements  and  hopes  of  glandular  therapy — Some  general  con- 
siderations in  view  of  work  in  this  field. 

NEXT  to  Darwin,  though  by  a  wide  interval,  August 
Weismann  (d.  1914,  a.e.  80)  has  most  influenced  general 
biological  thought.  His  failing  eyesight  at  middle  age 
caused  him  to  abandon  the  microscope  for  biological 
thinking,  a  field  where  there  was  a  great  need  of  syn- 
thesis and  expert  theory  and  in  which  he  developed  great 
power  and  influence.  His  hierarchy  of  metamicroscopic 
vital  units,  his  dogma  of  the  non-inheritance  of  acquired 
qualities  in  confutation  of  the  prevailing  Lamarckian- 
ism,  and  his  demonstration  of  the  continuity  of  the  germ 
plasm  have  been  theses  of  great  interest  and  centers  of 
very  active  discussion,  even  outside  the  special  field  of 
zoology,  although  in  the  latter  doctrine,  which  chiefly 
248 


BIOLOGY  AND  PHYSIOLOGY 

concerns  this  discussion,  he  was  in  a  sense  anticipated  by 
Owen,  Jager,  Nussbaum,  and  especially  by  Sir  Francis 
Galton,  as  he  later  found.1  He  first  set  forth  the  now 
generally  accepted  view  that  most  of  the  primitive  uni- 
cellular organisms  do  not  die  and  also  sought  to  explain 
how  death  first  entered  the  world.2  He  says : 

We  cannot  speak  of  natural  death  among  unicellular  animals, 
for  their  growth  has  no  termination  which  is  comparable  with 
death.  The  origin  of  new  individuals  is  not  connected  with  the 
death  of  the  old ;  but  increase  by  division  takes  place  in  such 
a  way  that  the  two  parts  into  which  an  organism  separates  are 
exactly  equivalent,  one  to  the  other,  and  neither  of  them  is  older 
nor  younger  than  the  other.  In  this  way  countless  numbers  of 
individuals  arise,  each  of  which  is  as  old  as  the  species  itself, 
while  each  possesses  the  capability  of  living  on  indefinitely  by 
means  of  division. 

Each  of  these  one-celled  individuals  thus  lives  on  and 
grows,  till  its  surface,  through  which  all  nutritive  sub- 
stance is  absorbed  and  which  increases  at  a  less  rapid 
rate  than  its  cubic  content,  becomes  relatively  too  small, 
so  that  the  creature  can  no  longer  be  nourished  through 
it  and  the  mature  cell  faces  the  alternative  either  to  die  or 
divide  into  two  halves;  and,  accepting  the  latter,  be- 
comes, by  division,  two  smaller  daughter  cells  that,  as  the 
food-absorbing  surface  becomes  now  relatively  greater, 
are  rejuvenated,  although  their  combined  substance  is 
exactly  the  same  as  that  of  the  mother  cell  of  which  they 
are  simply  bifurcations.  As,  thus,  the  substance  of  the 
parent  cells  all  goes  over  into  the  offspring  resulting 
from  the  fission,  nothing  is  lost  in  the  process,  not  even 
an  envelope  or  membrane,  as  Gotte,  Weismann's  chief 
earlier  critic,  thought  was  the  case  in  encystment.  Thus 

1  The  Germ  Plasm,  1893,  p.  198  et  seq. 

1  See  his  Essays  Upon  Heredity  and  Other  Biological  Problems,  vol.  i, 
1889,  especially  Chaps.  I,  "The  Duration  of  Life,"  and  III,  "Life  and 
Death." 

249 


SENESCENCE 

there  is  no  vestige  or  rudiment  of  a  corpse.  Nothing  is 
sloughed  off.  It  is  in  this  sense  that  such  creatures  are 
immortal.  They  have  gone  on  growing  and  dividing 
thus  ever  since  life  began  and  will  continue  to  do  so  until 
it  ceases.  Thus  there  is  a  direct  continuity  from  first  to 
last  that  is  unbroken  by  anything  that  can  be  called 
death.  If  once  and  so  long  as  these  single-celled  crea- 
tures were  the  only  or  highest  forms  of  life,  death  or 
anything  like  it  was  unknown.  In  all  this  process,  of 
course,  nothing  like  conjugation,  mating,  or  fertilization 
occurs. 

That  this  is  not  mere  theory  the  experiments  and  ob- 
servations of  many  subsequent  investigators,  especially 
Woodruff  and  his  pupils,  have  shown.  In  thirteen  and  a 
half  years  he  found  paramecia  had  divided  some  8,500 
times,  and  the  process  is  still  going  on  as  actively  as  at 
first.  Of  these  results  Raymond  Pearl 3  says,  "If  in 
8,500  generations — a  duration  of  healthy  reproductive 
existence  which,  if  the  generations  were  of  the  same 
length  as  in  man,  would  represent  roughly  a  quarter  of  a 
million  years  in  absolute  time — natural  death  has  not 
occurred,  we  may,  with  reasonable  assurance,  conclude 
that  the  animal  is  immortal."  Thus  it  is  that  larger, 
older  cells  are  constantly  being  regenerated  by  spon- 
taneous division  and  natural  death  does  not  occur  among 
most  protozoa. 

They  simply  grow  and  divide  in  an  ever  alternating 
rhythm  and  this  was  the  fundamental  cadence  in  the 
song  of  life.  If  the  large  or  mature  stage  is,  in  any 
sense,  a  prelude  of  old  age,  division  in  the  same  way 
represents  rejuvenation.  The  latter  is  thus  almost, 
although  perhaps  not  quite,  as  primordial  as  the  phase  of 
growth  itself,  and  among  the  most  ancient  and  persistent 
of  all  the  heritages  that  higher  forms  of  life  received 

'  In  his  able  and  brilliant  discussion  on  "The  Biology  of  Death,"  Scien- 
tific Monthly,  March,  1921,  p.  202. 

250 


BIOLOGY  AND  PHYSIOLOGY 

from  the  lower  is  this  power  to  grow  young.  Thus  the 
systole  and  diastole  of  the  heart  of  the  Zoologos  began. 
The  monad  becomes  a  duad ;  the  individual,  a  dividual, 
almost  as  inevitably  as  the  former  grows ;  and  the  pro- 
cessional through  this  tiny  life  cycle  contains  in  it  the 
promise  and  potency  of  countless  other  processes  that 
developed  from  it  later.  Thus  even  a  colony  of  the  far 
more  complex  coral  polyps  may  develop  perhaps  for 
thousands  of  years  from  a  single  individual. 

Now,  while  protozoa  may  occasionally  conjugate  and 
thus  prelude  a  higher  form  of  reproduction  and  while  the 
simpler  metazoa  may  propagate  by  fission  or  budding, 
reminiscent  of  the  older  way,  the  general  mode  of  propa- 
gation among  many-celled  organisms  follows  what  seems 
at  first  a  very  different  law.  In  these  forms  a  sperm  cell 
or  spermatozoon  must  penetrate  a  germ  cell  or  an  ovum 
and  then  the  zygote,  or  fertilized  egg,  immediately  begins 
to  reorganize  itself  from  within  and  to  divide  into  two, 
four,  eight  cells,  etc.;  and  these  divisions  produce  cells 
not  all  exactly  like  the  mother  cell  but  differentiation  be- 
gins. In  some  species,  as  early  as  the  first  few  divisions 
certain  cells  are  set  apart  as  germ  cells,  devoted  exclu- 
sively to  the  purpose  of  reproduction.  From  these  ova 
and  spermatozoa  arise.  While  others,  far  more  in  num- 
ber and  aggregate  bulk  and  increasingly  so  as  we  ascend 
the  scale  of  life,  become  more  and  more  specialized  for 
the  production  of  different  organs,  structures,  and  tis- 
sues. These  gradually  lose  the  power  to  produce  entire 
individuals.  It  is  these  that  produce,  and  their  descend- 
ants that  constitute,  all  the  rest  of  the  body,  or  soma, 
and  so  are  called  the  somatic  cells.  It  is  these  and  their 
progeny  only  that  die  while  the  germ  cells,  a  very  minute 
portion  of  the  entire  body  in  the  higher  forms  of  life, 
still  continue,  like  the  protozoa,  to  divide  and  grow  in 
scecula  sceculorum,  and  it  is  they  that,  in  a  mundane 
sense,  are  immortal.  Of  course  very  few  of  the  circa 

251 


SENESCENCE 

four  hundred  ova  produced  during  the  sex  life  of  an 
average  human  female  and  vastly  less  of  the  three  hun- 
dred and  forty  billions  of  spermatozoa,  according  to 
Lote's  estimate,  produced  by  the  average  male 4  become 
mature  individuals.  Most  of  them  perish  by  the  way  and 
all  those  in  the  body  at  its  death  perish,  of  course,  with 
it.  But  sex  cells,  or  rather  the  germ  plasm,  even  in  the 
highest  animals,  including  man,  which  attain  their  goal 
and  produce  mature  individuals  of  a  new  generation, 
continuing  to  follow  the  old  formula  of  eternal  growth 
and  division  though  vastly  slower,  remain  still  deathless. 

Thus  life  is  a  really  unbroken  continuum  from  its  be- 
ginning to  its  end  and  we  are  all  connected,  as  it  were, 
by  direct  physical  participation  with  the  life  of  our  pro- 
genitors. Each  individual  produces  a  few  germ  cells 
that  reach  the  goal  of  maturity  and  many  somatic  cells 
doomed  to  death ;  and  in  the  next  generation  each  repeats 
the  same  process.  Some  flagellate  spores,  for  example, 
when  they  divide,  lose  only  the  flagellum,  which  each  new 
individual  has  to  reproduce  for  itself  and  this  is  the  rudi- 
ment of  the  corpse  that  in  the  higher  forms  of  life  be- 
comes indefinitely  more  bulky  and  complex ;  while  under- 
neath all  this  increasing  punctuation  by  death,  as  it  de- 
veloped, the  old  plasmal  immortality  still  persists.  On 
the  other  hand,  all  forms  of  fission  and  agamic  budding, 
so  common  a  method  of  reproduction  in  plants  and  often 
found  in  simpler  forms  of  multicellular  animal  life,  such 
as  sponges  and  coelenterates,  are  reminiscent  of  the  pro- 
tozoan fashion. 

Thus  we  see  that  death  came  into  the  world  not  by 
reason  of  sin,  as  theology  teaches,  but  because  of  differ- 
entiation. As  cells  acquired  the  power  to  produce  mor.e 
and  more  specialized  organs  and  functions  they  lost  the 
power  to  reproduce  the  entire  body  and  they  lost  it  pro- 

*  American  Handbook  of  Physiology,  1897,  p.  883. 
252 


BIOLOGY  AND  PHYSIOLOGY 

gressively — almost  in  exact  proportion  as  their  power  of 
multiplication  became  specific.  Thus,  as  we  should  ex- 
pect, we  find  in  the  early  stages  of  this  differentiation 
cells  that  can  be  influenced  toward  the  old  general  or  the 
new  and  more  specific  powers  of  reproduction.  Yet  back 
of  all  the  fact  remains  that  life  itself  is  essentially  per- 
durable and  that  we  can  explain  death  better  than  we  can 
explain  life.  Death  is  thus  not  necessary  or  universal 
but  is  derived  and  is,  in  a  sense,  a  product  of  slow  devel- 
opment; and  we  can  conceive  a  stage  of  evolution  in 
which  natural  death  did  not  occur  at  all  but  was  always 
due  to  external  accidents.  Indeed,  Weismann  goes  so 
far  as  to  say  that  the  difference  between  the  germ 
and  the  soma  is  so  great  that  the  latter,  with  all 
its  fortunes,  has  little  or  no  influence  upon  the 
former;  and  by  his  doctrine  that  acquired  traits  and 
qualities  are  not  inheritable  he  seems  to  draw  a  hard  and 
fast  line  separating  the  mortal  from  the  immortal  parts 
or  organisms.  He  also  devoted  the  greatest  ingenuity 
in  evolving  an  intricate  scheme  of  biophores,  ids,  idants, 
determinants,  etc.,  inherent  in  germ  cells,  in  order  to 
explain  the  phenomena  of  heredity.  His  studies  have 
had  great  influence  in  directing  the  attention  of  investi- 
gators to  the  most  elementary  structures  and  functions 
of  germ  plasm  and  the  remarkable  changes  within  cells 
that  occur  in  the  very  earliest  stages  of  embryonic  de- 
velopment; while,  as  we  shall  see,  many  of  the  most 
recent  researches  have  been  directed,  since  his  work  was 
done,  to  the  conditions  under  which  somatic  cells  in  dif- 
ferent tissues  of  the  animal  body  can  be  made  to  prolif- 
erate and  grow,  under  carefully  controlled  conditions, 
more  than  it  was  possible  for  them  to  do  under  conditions 
afforded  them  while  they  remained  parts  of  the  body  in 
which  they  were  developed. 

Here  I  deem  it  in  point  to  observe  that  the  adoption 
in  its  extreme  form  of  the  theory  of  preformation  versus 

253 


SENESCENCE 

epigenesis,  or  the  assumption  that  no  qualities  due  to  the 
experiences  of  the  soma  can  have  any  influence  upon 
germ  plasm  or  affect  heredity,  would  be  to  revert  to 
views  very  like  those  of  the  old  creationists.  From  Weis- 
mann  we  may  well  lay  to  heart  that  this  influence  is  very 
slow  and  slight  in  any  one  or  even  a  large  number  of 
generations,  suggesting  a  very  long  prehistory  for  the 
germ  plasm  of  higher  organisms.  But  to  hold  that  noth- 
ing in  the  recent  past  or  the  near  future  of  the  environ- 
ment within  or  without  the  individual  can  ever  in  the 
least  affect  innate  qualities  is  to  throw  ourselves  into  the 
arms  of  a  fatalism  that  more  or  less  blights  all  the 
motives  of  reform  and  amelioration  of  conditions  or  of 
educational  influences  in  their  widest  scope.  On  the 
contrary,  we  hold  that  the  ultimate  goal  of  all  the  im- 
provements of  life  or  mores  is  to  better  heredity,  that 
most  precious  and  ancient  of  all  the  many  forms  of 
values  and  worths,  and  that  the  degree  in  which  they  do 
this  is  the  final  criterion  of  all  really  worthy  endeavor 
in  the  world.  If  the  good  life  of  a  long  series  of  genera- 
tions of  our  ancestors  does  not  in  the  least  tend  to  make 
their  offspring  a  little  better  born  and  give  them  some 
slightly  better  chance  for  a  worthy,  long,  and  happy  life, 
quite  apart  from  all  postnatal,  parental,  and  other  influ- 
ences, the  taproot  of  all  motivations  for  reforming 
human  conditions  is  cut,  and  all  efforts  in  this  direction 
become  a  little  falsetto  and  every  generation  must  start 
again  at  the  beginning. 

Just  now  we  are  told  that  the  whole  domain  of  con- 
sciousness since  civilization  began  has  had  little  influence 
upon  the  deeper  and  older  unconscious  elements  of 
human  nature  but  no  one  among  these  psychoanalysts 
has  for  a  moment  insisted  that  it  had  none.  The  moral 
in  both  cases  is  simply  that  we  must  now  make  far  larger 
drafts  upon  the  inexhaustible  bank  of  Time  and  realize 
that  in  the  one  case,  body,  and  in  the  other,  mind,  is 

254 


BIOLOGY  AND  PHYSIOLOGY 

immeasurably  older  than  we  had  deemed  them  to  be,  that 
is,  that  both  germ  plasm  and  the  unconscious  have  been 
very  long  in  the  making  and  come  to  us  charged  with 
potencies  innate  in  the  individual  but  very  slowly  ac- 
quired— in  the  one  case  by  the  ascending  orders  of  ani- 
mal life  from  the  first  and,  in  the  other,  by  man  and  his 
ancestors.  We  certainly  have  not  yet  heard  the  last 
word  from  zoology  which,  while  stressing  the  hereditary 
factors,  for  example,  and  individual  longevity,  must 
admit  that  old  age  in  general  is  a  more  or  less  acquired 
character.  Before  we  do  so,  an  important  correlation,  to 
which  I  shall  advert  later,  between  these  investigations 
and  those  in  the  new  field  of  the  endocrine  glands  and  the 
hormones  that  have  such  new  and  marvelous  power  of 
speedy  and  profound  influences  upon  so  many  parts  of 
and  processes  that  go  on  in  the  body,  must  be  made.5 

One  of  the  chief  traits  of  old  age  is  the  loss  of  germ 
plasm  with  its  power  of  perennially  regenerating  life  and 
this  loss  leaves  the  soma  to  slow  degeneration.  As  germ 
substance  decreases  individuality  generally  increases, 
sometimes  in  the  form  of  gross  selfishness.  As  the  body 
becomes  cadaverous  or  corpse-like  and  the  springs  of 
love  begin  to  dry  up  at  their  source,  secondary  sex  quali- 
ties fade  and  the  sexes  again  become  more  alike,  as  in 
childhood,  and  the  extremely  senile  are  but  the  husk  or 
shadow  of  their  former  selves.  Tenaciously  as  life  is 
clung  to,  it  is  at  the  same  time  felt  to  be  less  worth 
saving  either  here  or  hereafter,  for  whoever  heard  of 
senile  decrepitude  wanting  to  be  continued  beyond  the 
grave.  All  ideals  of  a  future  life  assume  a  restoration 
of  maturity  if  not  of  youth.  Doddering,  desiccating 
senility  has  always  been  abhorrent  to  gods  and  men  and 
I  know  of  no  either  imaginative  or  scientific  writer  who 

8  Mildly  challenging  Weismann's  non-inherited  ability  of  acquired  quali- 
ties is  Irving  Fisher's  "Impending  Problems  of  Eugenics,"  Set.  Mo., 
Sept.,  1921. 

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SENESCENCE 

has  even  attempted  to  describe  the  senium  as  it  would 
be  if  prolonged  to  its  extremest  conceivable  term,  when 
each  organ  and  function  slowly  ceased  "altogether  and 
nothing  first" — ever  shorter  in  stature,  more  shriveled 
and  emaciated  in  form,  hairless,  the  voice  shrunk  to  a 
whisper,  tottering,  tremors,  and  then  inability  to  work, 
move,  or  even  eat;  abatement  of  all  natural  functions, 
the  senses  slowly  becoming  extinct,  teeth  and  the  power 
of  mastication  gone,  everything  in  a  stage  of  progressive 
involution,  increasing  paralysis  of  all  receptive  or 
effector  processes,  offensive  perhaps  to  the  very  senses 
of  those  about,  seemingly  forgotten  for  the  time  by  death 
itself,  which  the  poor  victim  perhaps  longs  for  but  is 
unable  to  command  the  means  of  attaining,  feeling  him- 
self useless  and  a  grievous  burden,  a  just  living  mummy, 
torpid,  neither  really  sleeping  nor  waking;  and  in  the 
end  with  every  natural  function  sinking  synchronously 
but  so  gradually  that  observers  could  not  be  sure  whether 
each  slow  breath  or  heart  beat  was  really  the  last  or  just 
when  the  Great  Divide  had  rea!1.y  been  crossed  where 
Sleep  embraces  its  brother,  Death.  Something  like  this 
would  be  the  fate  of  the  soma,  after  it  had  been  aban- 
doned by  the  germ  plasm,  if  a  really  natural  death 
occurred,  that  is,  if,  by  some  of  the  many  disharmonies 
that  pervade  the  body,  some  organ  or  part  did  not  break 
down  before  the  others  were  worn  out  and  drag  them  to 
its  own  doom,  which  is  what  always  really  occurs  in  fact. 
If  we  look  at  the  matter  from  the  more  psychological 
and  Lamarckian  viewpoint,  suggested,  for  example,  by 
the  thesis  of  Hering,  that  memory  is  the  most  funda- 
mental trait  of  organized  matter,  a  view  elaborated  by 
Simon's  theory  of  mnemes  and  engrams,  all  experience  is 
more  or  less  permanently  registered  on  the  most  vital  of 
living  substances,  which  is  "wax  to  receive  and  granite 
to  retain,"  nerve  and  brain  being  the  next  best  organs  of 
registration  only  acting  more  specifically;  while  the  most 

256 


BIOLOGY  AND  PHYSIOLOGY 

generic  resultants  of  experience  attain  their  ultimate 
goal  of  being  recorded  in  the  structure  or  functions  of 
the  germ  plasm  and  thus  becoming  permanent  acquisi- 
tions of  the  species  or  race.  On  this  view  the  apex  of  life 
is  reached  at  that  stage  of  it  when  the  influence  of  the 
soma  upon  the  germ  plasm  is  greatest.  This,  of  course, 
ceases  when  the  latter  takes  its  departure  with  loss  of  the 
power  to  propagate.  Thus  of  all  the  stages  of  life,  old 
age  and  its  fortunes  alone  can  never  affect  heredity. 
Individuals  who  live  on  do  so  only  by  the  momentum 
given  by  germinal  energies  transmitted  from  their 
parents,  and  only  the  old  are  completely  isolated  from 
the  main  currents  of  the  life  of  the  race.  They  have 
already  died  racially  or  to  the  phylum  and  only  await  a 
second  or  individual  death.  Thus  if  any  large  number 
of  such  individuals  lived  on  for  many  decades,  they 
would  be  an  encumbrance ;  and  so  Nature,  always  intent 
on  the  interests  of  the  species  and  so  indifferent  to  the 
individual,  has  to  leave  them  to  their  fate.  They  may 
still  alleviate  individual  conditions  but  can  contribute 
nothing  to  racial  memories  in  the  above  sense.  The 
species  has  "forgotten  them  and  they  are  of  it  forgot." 

Elie  Metchnikoff  (d.  1916,  a.e.  71),  a  bacteriologist 
and  the  successor  of  Pasteur,  who  approached  the  prob- 
lem of  old  age  from  a  very  different  angle  and  collected 
many  interesting  data,  was  led  by  his  experiments  and 
observations  to  a  unique  theory.6  He  first  sets  forth 
the  disharmonies  in  the  life  of  animals  and  especially 
of  man  in  a  way  that  seems  pessimistic ;  but  both  his 
volumes  are  subtitled  "optimistic  studies"  because  he 
finds  hope  at  the  bottom  of  the  Pandora  casket. 

Old  age,  he  thinks,  is  not  due  to  loss  of  the  power  of 
somatic  cells  to  divide  or  reproduce  themselves  but  is 

*  The  Nature  of  Man,  1904,  309  pp.  and  The  Prolongation  of  Life,  1907, 
343  PP- 

257 


SENESCENCE 

"an  infectious  chronic  disease,  whether  manifested  by 
degeneration  or  an  enfeebling  of  the  nobler  elements  and 
by  the  excessive  activity  of  macrophags,"  the  latter 
being  large  wandering  cells  represented  by  the  white 
blood  corpuscles  and  which  he  holds  to  be  true  phago- 
cytes or  scavengers,  which,  instead  of  protecting  as  they 
were  meant  to  do,  are  very  liable  to  turn  on  and  destroy 
the  higher  elements  of  the  body.  They  are  thus  like  an 
army  raised  and  sent  out  to  destroy  menacing  savages 
that  may  turn  and  attack  its  own  city.  Old  age  and 
death,  then,  according  to  Metchnikoff,  are  not  due,  as 
Bliitschli  thought,  to  the  exhaustion  of  some  kind  of 
vital  ferment  that  protozoa  and  germ  plasm  have  pre- 
eminent power  to  make;  nor  to  the  mere  accumulation 
of  waste,  which  the  more  always  tend  to  dump  upon 
the  less  vital  elements  of  the  body;  nor,  as  Delboeuf 
conjectured,  to  the  precipitation  of  the  substance  of 
organs,  which  always  tend  to  revert  to  their  inorganic 
bases ;  nor  to  Roux's  hypothesis  that  organs  are  always 
competing  with  each  other  for  the  available  nutritive 
material,  and  that  as  and  when  there  is  not  enough  to 
satisfy  all,  those  that  have  to  starve  drag  down  the  rest ; 
nor  to  the  failure  of  the  initial  momentum  given  at 
impregnation;  nor  to  the  fact  that  at  the  senium  the 
body  has  passed  beyond  the  reach  of  the  influences  of 
sex  and  its  products;  but  it  is  due  to  a  very  rank  and 
variegated  flora  or  fauna  of  noxious  microbes,  and  es- 
pecially to  the  toxic  products  they  make,  which  tend  to 
accumulate  in  the  large  intestine,  making  it  thus  a  very 
cesspool  or  latrine  of  the  most  manifold  infections. 

Darwinists  have  stressed  the  advantages  of  the  large 
intestine  for  convenience  and  the  avoidance  of  the  neces- 
sity of  leaving  frequent  spoors  by  which  animals  might 
be  tracked  by  their  enemies.  But  many  species  are  with- 
out it  or  have  it  only  in  rudimentary  form  and  in  man 
its  removal  by  surgery  results  in  no  very  serious  impair- 

258 


BIOLOGY  AND  PHYSIOLOGY 

ment.  We  may  add,  too,  that  more  recently  psychoan- 
alysts have  described  the  anus  and  rectum  and  their 
functions  as  centers  of  various  erotic  activities,  es- 
pecially but  by  no  means  exclusively  in  children.  Here 
the  waste  products  of  the  digestive  processes  are 
dumped,  awaiting  removal,  and  it  has  long  been  known 
that  their  undue  accumulation  caused  not  only  local 
troubles  but  general  malaise,  anxieties,  and  nervous  and 
mental  tensions.  Metchnikoff  and  his  pupils  showed 
that  very  soon  after  birth  noxious  bacteria  find  their 
way  to  the  large  intestine  and  flourish  thereafter  in 
great  profusion,  especially  in  constipation,  and  that  no 
cathartics  can  be  relied  on  for  permanent  relief,  salutary 
as  medicine  has  always  and  everywhere  found  them  for 
mitigation  of  many  diverse  ailments.  It  is  the  microbes 
that  find  their  chief  nidus  here  that  are  the  principal 
cause  of  old  age  and  if  an  antidote  to  their  lethal  action 
could  be  found  Metchnikoff  believes  life  could  be  very 
greatly  prolonged.  He  attempts  to  show  that  among 
not  only  mammals  but  also  birds,  the  species  that  have 
developed  the  large  intestine  are  less  long-lived  than 
those  in  which  it  is  rudimentary,  so  that  in  animals 
generally  its  relative  size  and  individual  longevity  are 
inversely  as  each  other.  Most  of  the  digestive  processes 
are  completed  before  food  reaches  this  terminal  part  of 
the  long  alimentary  canal  and  very  little  save  water  can 
be  absorbed  through  its  walls,  so  that  rectal  feeding 
contributes  very  little,  indeed,  to  the  total  nutritive  needs 
of  the  body.  But  it  is  here  that  death  finds  its  chief 
armamentaria  and  establishes  a  receptacle,  factory,  or 
laboratory  of  poisons.  Not  only  are  there  many  microbes 
that  here  feed  on  food  residues  and  occasionally  pierce 
the  intestinal  walls  themselves,  but  they  produce  putre- 
factive products  that  are  still  more  lethal.  The  chief 
of  these  are  phenol  and  indol,  both  very  complex  and  due 
to  the  breaking  down  of  albuminoids,  the  chief  element 

259 


SENESCENCE 

in  meat,  peas,  eggs,  etc.  Young  people  may  for  a  long 
time  show  no  trace  of  the  deleterious  effects  due  to  the 
absorption  of  these  toxins,  but  the  slight  wear  and  tear 
of  the  tissues  they  cause  is  cumulative.  They  produce 
in  animals  old-age  effects  in  kidneys,  arteries,  liver, 
lungs,  muscles,  testes,  ovaries,  and  even  in  the  brain, 
for  senility  is  due  to  the  action  of  these  bacterial  in- 
vaders and  not  to  time  or  to  wearing  out. 

So  vital  and  rapidly  growing  are  these  bacteria  that 
they  would  soon,  under  favorable  conditions,  outbulk 
the  entire  body.  But  while  their  numbers  are  kept  down 
by  lack  of  nutriment  and  other  conditions,  nature  pro- 
vides no  adequate  antidote  to  their  activity.  This  was 
found  by  Woolman  and  was  called  glycobacterium,  or 
the  sugar-maker.  It  was  found  first  in  the  dog,  and  it 
can  be  cultivated  in  the  laboratory  and  introduced  into 
the  body.  It  transforms  starch  into  sugar  without  af- 
fecting the  albuminoids  and  it  is  not,  like  sugar,  absorbed 
before  it  reaches  the  large  intestine.  Thus  it  is  not 
sugar  that  is  the  antidote  but  the  lactic  acid  of  its  product 
and  this  is  found  in  nature  in  the  bacillus  of  sour  milk, 
a  common  article  of  diet  among  Bulgarians,  who  seem 
to  be  the  longest-lived  people  in  Europe.  The  results 
of  experiments  with  this  product,  first  upon  rats  and 
other  animals,  Metchnikoff  thought  remarkably  reju- 
venating; and  as  all  know,  many  substances  containing 
lactic  acid  were  for  a  long  time  in  great  favor,  although 
expectations  of  its  effectiveness  have  by  no  means  been 
fulfilled.  The  death  of  Metchnikoff  himself,  too,  at  the 
age  of  seventy-one,  who  had  long  and  diligently  used 
his  own  panacea,  did  not  help  the  confidence  of  his  dis- 
ciples, for  we  can  never  forget  the  old  slogan,  "Physi- 
cian, heal  thyself." 

In  Sanger's  returns  to  his  questionnaire,7  as  well  as 

1  See  a  valuable  but  unprinted  thesis  of  W.  T.  Sanger,  a  pupil  of  mine, 
"The  Study  of  Senescence,"  Clark  University,  1915. 

26O 


BIOLOGY  AND  PHYSIOLOGY 

to  my  own,  one  often  finds  people  who  use  some  form 
of  this  preparation  and  with  what  they  deem  good  re- 
sults and  Metchnikoff's  volumes  show  such  a  unique 
combination  of  humanistic  and  scientific  interests  that 
they  have  had  wide  popularity. 

The  problems,  however,  with  which  he  deals  are  so 
extremely  complicated  that  his  work  may  really  be  said 
to  have  propounded  more  problems  than  he  solved.  He 
believed  he  had  found  and  even  named  specific  phago- 
cytes attacking  most,  but  not  all,  of  the  main  tissues 
and  organs  of  the  body.  Cohorts  of  them  encamp  about 
cells,  very  slowly  absorbing  their  substance  and  de- 
pleting their  energies — some  attacking  muscles;  others, 
heart  and  arteries,  etc.;  others  consuming  the  pigment 
cells  of  the  hair  which,  however,  as  Pohl  showed,  con- 
tinues to  grow  as  rapidly  in  old  age  as  in  youth,  as  do 
the  finger  nails;  others  making  the  bones  porous  and 
brittle  by  removing  the  lime  from  them  and  transferring 
some  of  it  to  the  walls  of  the  arteries ;  some  even  special- 
izing to  attack  brain  and  nerve  cells.  We  must  fight 
fire  with  fire,  and  to  do  this  we  must  not  only  introduce 
the  sugar-making  bacteria  but  provide  them  with  food 
in  situ  in  order  that  they  may  do  their  great  work  of 
purifying  the  cradle  or  breeding  ground  of  noxious 
bacilli.  Some  of  his  disciples  are  still  enthusiastic 
enough  to  believe  that  just  as  we  purified  the  Panama 
Zone;  as  vaccination  has  almost  annihilated  smallpox, 
which  once  caused  about  one-tenth  of  all  deaths;  as 
Behring's  antitoxin  has  greatly  abated  the  scourge  of 
diphtheria ;  as  Wright's  vaccine  has  lessened  death  from 
typhoid;  as  Ehrlich's  salvarsan  treatment  has  done  so 
much  for  syphilis,  and  as  he  and  Wassermann  hope  may 
be  done  for  cancer — so  we  may  yet  find  and  learn  how 
to  use  a  specific  that,  although  it  will  not  realize  the 
dreams  of  those  who  once  sought  an  elixir  of  life,  will 
nevertheless  contribute  to  its  perhaps  indefinitely  great 

261 


SENESCENCE 

prolongation.  This  Metchnikoff  does  not  hesitate  to  call 
"the  most  important  problem  of  humanity."  His  ideal 
is  what  he  calls  orthobiosis,  which  is  "the  development 
of  human  life  so  that  it  passes  through  a  long  period 
of  old  age  in  active  and  vigorous  health  leading  to  the 
final  period  in  which  there  shall  be  present  a  sense  of 
satiety  of  life  and  a  wish  for  death."  Mere  prolongation 
of  life  in  the  sense  of  Herbert  Spencer  is  not  in  itself 
desirable.  When  the  wish  for.  death  comes,  he  thinks 
that  under  certain  circumstances  suicide  would  be  quite 
justifiable.  Old  age,  he  believes,  will  not  only  be  greatly 
prolonged  but  will  become  optimistic.  Pessimism  he 
finds  commonest  among  young  men,  while  many  avowed 
pessimists  have  become  optimistic  in  their  old  age. 
Young  men  will  not  so  precipitately  attempt  to  displace 
the  old,  as  he  finds  to  be  too  much  the  case  now,  but 
the  latter  will  attain  greater  power  and  influence. 

The  constitution  man  has  inherited  from  his  an- 
thropoid ancestors  is  far  from  fitting  his  present  en- 
vironment. The  greatest  disharmony  of  all  is  the  morbid 
nature  and  brevity  of  the  period  of  old  age.  Man  does 
not  round  out  his  prescribed  cycle  and  develop  in  its 
final  stage  an  instinct  for  and  love  of  death,  as  he  should. 
He  is  expelled  from  the  school  of  life  at  all  stages  of 
its  curriculum  but  always  before  the  final  or  senior  year, 
until  the  fact  that  there  was  such  a  final  grade  has  been 
almost  forgotten.  It  was  because  man  felt  himself  pre- 
maturely cut  off  that  he  developed  all  dreams  of  resur- 
rection and  of  another  life.  Had  he  completed  his  life 
here  he  would  never  have  wanted  or  dreamed  of  another. 
Had  the  involution  that  begins  usually  in  the  fifth  decade 
or  earlier  gone  on  normally,  it  would  have  made  each 
stage  of  the  recessional  no  whit  less  delightful  than  those 
of  the  processional  of  youth  till,  having  withdrawn  more 
and  more  from  life  and  being  in  the  end  quite  satiated 
with  it,  the  individual  would  have  rejoiced  to  see  the 

262 


BIOLOGY  AND  PHYSIOLOGY 

limitations  that  separate  him  from  ultimate  reality  fall 
away  until  he  merges,  body  and  soul,  into  the  cosmos 
from  which  he  came.  Only  the  simplest  organisms  are 
immortal  and  as  we  ascend  the  scale  and  develop  a  more 
complex  soma,  the  more  impossible  does  any  kind  of 
immortality  become.  Metchnikoff  seeks  nothing  of  this 
sort  but  would  simply  increase  the  number  of  years  and 
enrich  them  in  the  last  phase  of  our  existence  so  that, 
instead  of  being  the  pitiful  remnant  it  now  is  and  instead 
of  having  to  console  itself  so  pathetically  by  the  puerile 
and  unsubstantial  figments  that  religions  and  philoso- 
phies have  given  us,  man  would  enter  upon  the  full 
heritage  that  nature  intended  for  him.  Thus  the  highest 
goal  of  all  endeavor  is  to  overcome  the  present  degenera- 
tion of  senescence,  to  cultivate  physiological  old  age; 
and  when  this  ideal  is  realized,  more  and  more  of  the 
complex  and  intricate  affairs  of  social,  industrial, 
political,  and  other  forms  of  life  will  be  left  to  the  old 
men,  for  these  things  require  not  only  technical  training 
but,  perhaps  even  more,  the  wide  view,  insight,  and 
common  sense  for  which  experience  with  life  is  the  best 
school. 

Metchnikoff  was  able  to  discover  only  two  ideal  cases 
of  old  people  in  whom  his  "instinct  for  death"  was  well 
developed.  But  he  believes  that  as  gerontology  advances 
this  instinct  will  not  be  the  exception  but  the  rule  and 
that  the  very  nature  of  old  age  as  we  know  it  will  be 
radically  transformed.  At  present  we  know  little  more 
of  it  than  the  prepubescent  child  knows  of  sex  or  the 
embryo  of  its  mother's  milk.  When  the  instinct  for 
death  is  well  developed,  we  shall  long  for  it  as  we  do 
for  sleep  when  we  are  fatigued,  for  old  age  is  The  Great 
Fatigue.  Many  instincts  of  the  young  are  reversed  and 
pass  over  into  their  ambivalent  opposite  at  a  later  stage 
of  life;  and  so  the  love  of  life  will,  in  the  end,  be  trans- 
formed into  the  love  of  death.  Both  animal  and  human 
263 


SENESCENCE 

parents  devote  their  lives  to  the  service  of  their  offspring 
during  the  period  in  which  this  is  necessary;  but  when 
the  latter  are  mature,  we  often  find  a  reversal  of  this 
instinct.  Perhaps  the  intense  sensitiveness  of  ova  and 
spermotozoa  displayed  in  the  phenomena  of  chemotaxis 
and  in  the  marvelous  power  of  regeneration  of  lost  parts 
among  many  lower  forms  of  metazoa,  and  the  many 
phenomena  that  led  Haeckel  to  call  the  soul  of  cells 
immortal,  are  lost  later  as  higher,  conscious  psychic 
powers  develop;  and  if  so,  this  shows  the  marvelous 
transformability  of  the  primitive  impulses  that  dominate 
simpler  forms  of  life. 

Thus  Metchnikoff  is  a  humanist  as  well  as  a  scientist. 
He  sets  down  faithfully  what  he  saw  through  the  micro- 
scope, but  not  content  with  that  ventures  to  indulge  his 
speculative  instincts  and  tell  the  world  what  he  thinks 
his  discoveries  mean  for  the  practical  conduct  of  life 
and  of  mind — and  that,  too,  in  more  or  less  untechnical 
terms  that  make  his  ideas  accessible  to  intelligent  lay- 
men. For  him,  as  for  Plato,  "philosophy  is  the  art  of 
preparing  for  death."  He  even  urged  that  "the  instinct 
for  death  seems  to  lie  in  some  potential  form  deep  in 
the  constitution  of  man,"  and  it  was  this  he  sought  to 
develop.  The  only  basis  for  all  modern  forms  of  belief 
in  immortality  roots  in  a  platonic  reminiscence  of  the 
processes  of  the  deathless  germ  plasm,  and  from  this  the 
old  soma  and  the,  no  whit  less,  old  psyche  have  departed 
as  far  as  possible.  Psychic  life,  too,  has  its  proximate 
beginnings  in  the  intense  vitality  of  germ  plasm  and 
cells  and  from  these  rudiments  the  adult  human  con- 
sciousness has  so  far  developed  that  our  conscious  psyche 
knows  no  more  of  it  than  it  does  of  the  migrations  or 
depredations  of  the  phagocytes  within  the  body.  Man 
is  the  most  pathetic  of  beings  because  of  the  two  tides 
whose  ebb  and  flow  constitute  his  life — evolution  and 

264 


BIOLOGY  AND  PHYSIOLOGY 

de-  or  in- volution,  anabasis  and  catabasis.  He  has  failed, 
on  account  of  the  action  of  the  intestinal  fauna  within 
him,  to  achieve  any  adequate  sense  of  appreciation,  still 
less  enjoyment  of  the  refluent  currents.  Man  is  thus 
deprived  of  the  nascent  period  in  which  this  wooing  of 
death  is  due  to  arise  and  does  not  reach  his  true  end 
or  final  goal.  Dreamy  illusions  about  it  have  always 
haunted  his  soul  as  unsubstantial  surrogates.  When 
man  now  in  the  making  is  finished,  what  we  at  present 
call  old  age  will  be  a  sort  of  superhumanity,  a  new  and 
higher  story,  and  its  completion  will  spontaneously  bring 
with  it  new  and  deeper  insights;  and  he  will  approach 
and  finally  enter  Nirvana  with  the  same  zest  and  buoy- 
ancy with  which  he  now  takes  possession  of  life. 

Crude  and  amateurish  as  often  is  MetchnikofFs 
philosophy,  his  courage,  candor,  and  the  strength  of  his 
convictions  are  commendable,  and  the  faith  he  adds  to 
his  knowledge  is  full  of  hope.  From  his  ideal  thinker, 
Schopenhauer,  he  caught  the  flavor  of  the  Vedanta  and 
Upanishads  but  he  did  not  see  how  these  very  ideals 
also  underlay  the  mystic  hermetic  philosophy  of  the 
medieval  alchemists  and  their  royal  art,  as  modern  sym- 
bolists like  Hitchcock  and  Silberer  interpret  them;  and 
to  this  I  shall  revert  later.  If  he  overestimated  the  value 
of  his  panacea  and  ventured  into  fields  of  other  experts 
in  which  he  was  ignorant  and  where  he  was  often  mis- 
taken, he  has  at  least  made  a  very  valuable  addition 
to  the  yet  all  too  meager  literature  on  senectitude,  which 
all  thoughtful  and  intelligent  aging  people  can  read  not 
only  with  profit  but  with  pleasure,  if  only  they  have 
escaped  from  the  narrow  limits  of  orthodox  Philistia. 
To  have  really  edified  this  now  ever  growing  section  of 
all  civilized  countries  is  a  real  culture  service.  His  work 
is  uniquely  inspired  by  a  spirit  psychologically  very  akin 
to  that  which  impelled  Buddha  when  he  set  out  on  his 
265 


SENESCENCE 

mission  of  finding  The  Way,  stimulated  to  do  so  by  the 
sight  of  an  aging  man  and  a  putrefying  corpse." 

Charles  Sedgwick  Minot,  an  embryologist,  (d.  1914, 
a.e.  62)  devoted  most  of  his  maturer  years  to  a  study 
of  the  phenomena  of  growth,  keeping  and  daily  weigh- 
ing many  young  animals,  especially  guinea  pigs,  and  he 
has  left  us  a  good  compendium  of  his  life  work.9  Stated 
in  the  most  general  terms,  he  held  that  old  age  and  death 
were  progressive  phenomena  that  began  in  the  individual 
with  life  itself,  that  the  best  method  of  measuring 
vitality  was  the  rate  of  growth,  and  that  this  constantly 
diminishes  and  finally  ceases.  As  soon  as,  for  example, 
guinea  pigs  recover  from  the  disturbances  caused  by 
their  birth,  which  are  great  and  last  two  or  three  days 
because  they  are  born  at  a  very  advanced  stage  of  devel- 
opment, they  add  from  5  per  cent  to  6  per  cent  to  their 
weight  during  a  single  day.  But  this  percentage 
diminishes,  so  that  by  the  end  of  the  first  month  they 
add  only  2  per  cent ;  at  ninety  days,  only  i  per  cent ;  and 
the  diminution  continues,  rapidly  at  first  and  then  more 
slowly.  Calculating  the  time  to  make  successive  addi- 
tions of  10  per  cent,  there  are  twenty-five  of  these  addi- 

§In  her  fascinating  life  of  her  husband,  "Life  of  Elie  Metchnikoff," 
(1920)  the  widow  of  Metchnikoff  describes  him  in  his  last  days  as  anxious 
"that  his  end,  which  seemed  premature  at  first  sight,  did  not  contradict 
his  theories  but  had  deep  causes,  such  as  heredity,  and  the  belated 
introduction  of  a  rational  diet,  which  he  began  to  follow  only  at  fifty- 
three."  He  was  very  anxious  that  his  example  of  serenity  in  the  face 
of  death  should  be  encouraging  and  comforting.  He  had  no  illusions 
and  knew  for  a  long  time  that  he  was  living  only  from  day  to  day.  He 
speculated  whether  the  end  would  come  to-day  or  to-morrow  and  had 
several  specific  "death  sensations,"  pledging  his  wife  to  hold  his  hand 
when  the  end  came.  He  was  interested  in  the  completion  of  her  biography 
of  him,  begged  for  enough  pantopon  to  bring  an  eternal  sleep,  directed 
his  friend  how  to  perform  his  autopsy  and  what  to  look  for  in  the 
different  organs,  provided  for  his  cremation  and  the  final  disposition 
of  his  ashes,  etc.  All  was  done  as  he  wished,  with  no  funeral  and  no 
speeches,  flowers,  or  invocations,  and  his  ashes  now  lie  in  an  urn,  as 
he  directed,  in  the  library  of  the  Pasteur  Institute. 

*  The  Problem  of  Age,  "Growth,  and  Death;  A  study  of  Cytomorphosis, 
1908,  280  pp. 

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BIOLOGY  AND  PHYSIOLOGY 

tions;  and  not  until  we  reach  the  seventeenth  addition 
do  we  find  nine  days  or  more  necessary.  The  twenty- 
second  addition  takes  four  days,  the  later  ones  being 
somewhat  irregular.  The  first  ten  per  cent  increment 
often  comes  in  two  days. 

Chicks,  too,  are  born  highly  developed,  and  so  lose 
during  the  first  day.  Then  the  daily  percentage  of  in- 
crease is  greater  than  in  the  guinea  pig.  From  the  sixth 
to  the  tenth  day  inclusive  the  average  is  nearly  but  not 
quite  9  per  cent;  at  the  end  of  the  third  month,  only 
2  per  cent.  Rabbits  are  born  very  immature  and,  being 
less  developed,  grow  more  rapidly.  The  average  for 
males  of  the  first  five  days  of  growth  is  over  17  per  cent. 
The  rabbit  thirty  days  old  has  about  the  same  daily 
percentage  of  increase  as  the  new-born  guinea  pig.  The 
human  child  takes  180  days  to  double  its  weight;  a  horse, 
60;  a  cow,  47;  goat,  19;  pig,  18;  sheep,  10;  cat,  9^; 
dog,  8;  rabbit,  6-7,  these  rates  depending,  in  part,  on 
the  quality  of  the  mother's  milk. 

In  embryos  the  rate  of  growth  is  still  more  rapid. 
The  increase  in  the  guinea  pig  in  the  first  five  days  is 
3,520  per  cent,  or  an  average  of  704  per  cent  daily. 
From  the  fifteenth  to  the  twentieth  day  it  is  1,058  per 
cent,  or  an  average  of  212  per  cent  per  day.  Thus  the 
rate  of  growth  during  the  foetal  period  is  far  more  rapid 
and  it  is  more  so  in  the  earlier  than  in  the  later  stages 
of  embryonic  development.  The  farther  back  we  go, 
the  more  rapid  is  this  rate.  Thus  his  curves  show  a 
very  steep  decline  in  the  rate  of  growth,  even  in  its 
earlier  stages,  and  this  decline  continues,  although  at 
an  ever  decreasing  rate,  to  the  end.  Thus  from  this 
point  of  view  the  younger  creatures  are,  the  more  rapidly 
they  are  dying.  The  weight  of  a  fertilized  germ  he 
estimate  at  0.6  milligram  (and  he  tells  us  that  50,000 
of  these  could  go  by  mail  for  a  two-cent  stamp).  Thus 
the  human  embryo  at  birth  has  increased  5,000,000  per 
267 


SENESCENCE 

cent  of  its  initial  weight.  Old  age  is  merely  the  later 
result  of  changes  that  have  gone  on  at  a  diminishing 
rate  ever  since  the  ovum  from  which  we  originated  was 
fertilized. 

Life  is  growth ;  the  retardation  of  growth  is  old  age ; 
and  its  cessation  is  death.  "Senescence  is  at  its  maxi- 
mum in  the  very  young  stages,  and  the  rate  of  senescence 
diminishes  with  age"  (p.  250).  The  embryo  in  its 
earliest  stages  rushes  toward  old  age  at  an  almost  incon- 
ceivable velocity,  the  new-born  infant  runs,  the  child 
walks  rapidly,  youth  saunters,  the  adult  mopes,  and  old 
age  only  crawls  on  toward  death.  In  other  words,  the 
momentum  of  life  given  by  impregnation  at  the  age  of 
zero  is  retarded — most  at  first  and  with  a  diminishing 
rate  at  every  stage. 

Something  like  this  same  paradoxical  law  holds,  Minot 
believed,  for  the  human  brain  and  mind.  In  one  of  his 
Harvey  lectures  he  tells  us  that  the  brain  of  a  child 
at  birth  is  but  little  differentiated.  During  the  first  year 
it  learns  all  the  great  adaptations  in  the  physical  and 
human  world:  time,  space,  ego,  etc.  "It  learns  more 
during  the  first  year  than  in  all  the  subsequent  years  of 
life"  and  from  birth  on  the  power  of  learning  is  rapidly 
diminished.  It  declines  very  fast  during  infancy,  more 
slowly  in  childhood,  etc. 

Accepting  Metchnikoff's  dictum  that  senility  is 
atrophy  and  that  toxins  of  intestinal  origin  poison  and 
debilitate  tissues  so  that  they  succumb  to,  if  they  do 
not  actually  attract,  the  predaceous  phagocytes  (though 
not  proposing  his  substitute  of  sour  milk  for  religion 
and  philosophy),  Minot  points  out  that  we  are  always 
throwing  off  dead  cells.  Blood  corpuscles  collapse  and 
are  utilized  by  the  liver;  the  skin  is  incessantly  shedding 
dead  cells,  as  is  the  whole  intestinal  tract  and  each  organ ; 
stature  declines  some  13  cm.;  the  brain  loses  some  19 
gms.  in  weight;  the  rate  and  depth  of  respiration  sink; 

268 


BIOLOGY  AND  PHYSIOLOGY 

the  heart,  although  growing  larger  and  from  the  age 
of  prime  to  senility  beating  some  eight  times  per  minute 
faster,  is  nevertheless  obstructed  in  its  action  by  rigidify- 
ing  arteries ;  the  bones  grow  spongy  and  their  hard  outer 
part  becomes  a  thin  shell ;  the  muscle  fibers  decline  both 
in  size  and  number,  exercise  being  able  to  increase  only 
the  former  and  not  the  latter;  both  structure  and  func- 
tion go  on  to  rigidity  and  inflexibility  after  sufficient 
firmness  and  size  have  been  attained,  till  the  part  be- 
comes too  hard  and  inflexible  to  function  and  then  is 
shed  as  the  ripened  leaf  falls  in  autumn.  But  none  of 
these  processes  are  abnormal  and  hence  death  is  in  no 
sense  a  disease.  Indeed,  the  power  of  repair  and  even 
recuperation  persists  far  more  in  the  old  than  has  been 
generally  recognized. 

The  more  specific  cause  of  what  is  generally  called 
old  age  he  finds  in  the  increase  of  the  quantity  and  the 
hyperdifferentiation  of  the  structure  of  the  protoplasmic 
envelope  of  the  nucleus.  This  protoplasm  constitutes 
the  body  of  the  cell.  In  the  earliest  stages  of  cytomor- 
phosis,  which  follow  impregnation,  the  total  amount  of 
nuclear  material  increases  fastest,  while  later  and  es- 
pecially in  the  senescent  cells  it  is  the  protoplasm  that 
does  so.  In  the  early  stages  of  their  embryonic  develop- 
ment, too,  the  cells  differ  relatively  little ;  but  those  that 
constitute  the  adult  body  differ  so  greatly  that  any  skilled 
observer  can  tell  from  which  organ  they  came,  whether 
from  the  brain,  muscle,  skin,  stomach,  liver,  etc. ;  that  is, 
they  differentiate  more  and  more  as  these  organs  mature. 
This  differentiation  is,  however,  all  on  the  way  to  death 
and  is  never  reversible ;  that  is,  old  body  cells  never  grow 
young.  Nuclei  change  but  it  is  the  protoplasm  that 
changes  the  most  and  acquires  a  new  structure,  while  the 
composition  of  the  nucleus  not  only  changes  less  but 
always  retains  certain  fundamental  traits.  "The  in- 
crease of  the  protoplasm,  together  with  its  differentia- 
269 


SENESCENCE 

tion,  is  to  be  regarded  as  the  explanation  (or  should  we 
say  cause?)  of  senescence"  (p.  134).  This  is  necrobiosis. 
All  old  cells,  from  whatever  organ,  are  thus  as  recogniz- 
able as  old  faces.  "Growth  and  differentiation  of  proto- 
plasm are  the  cause  of  the  loss  of  the  power  of  growth" 
(p.  161).  He  even  holds  that  the  first  stages  of  the 
segmentation  of  the  ovum  must  be  called  rejuvenation. 
On  page  167  he  says: 

The  life  of  the  cell  has  two  phases — an  early  brief  one  during 
which  the  young  material  is  produced  and  the  later  and  prolonged 
one  in  which  the  process  of  differentiation  goes  on ;  and  that 
which  was  young,  through  a  prolonged  senescence  becomes  old. 
I  believe  these  are  the  alternating  phases  of  life,  and  that  as  we 
define  senescence  as  an  increase  and  differentiation  of  the  proto- 
plasm, so  we  must  define  rejuvenation  as  an  increase  of  the 
nuclear  material.  The  alternation  of  phases  is  due  to  the  alter- 
nation in  the  proportions  of  nucleus  and  protoplasm. 

In  adults,  and  even  in  the  old,  there  are  always  young 
cells  in  reserve,  often  grouped  in  certain  foci,  for  ex- 
ample, the  marrow  of  the  bones,  which  can  in  emergen- 
cies come  forward,  take  up  the  function  of  growth,  re- 
generate lost  tissues  or,  in  lower  animals,  even  lost 
organs.  At  and  even  after  the  death  of  the  aged  there 
are  always  cells  and  even  parts  that  are  relatively  young 
and  growing.  There  are  also,  of  course,  the  cells  and 
their  matrix,  which  are  very  early  set  apart  for  the 
purpose  of  reproduction,  and  these,  of  course,  are  least 
of  all  differentiated.  Most  cells  of  the  body,  however, 
follow  the  law  of  genetic  restriction.  This  means  that 
as  differentiation  proceeds,  the  possible  directions  in 
which  cells  can  develop  become  more  and  more  limited 
till  finally  they  cannot  divide  at  all  and  lose  even  the 
power  of  nourishing  themselves,  and  so  die.  The  cell 
and  all  of  it  represents  life,  and  Minot  has  no  use  for 
any  of  the  smaller  metamicroscopic  vital  units,  gemules, 
plastidules,  plasomes,  ideosomes,  granules,  etc.,  but 

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BIOLOGY  AND  PHYSIOLOGY 

thinks  that  if  we  wish  to  accept  any  kind  of  ultimate 
elements  of  this  sort,  Weismann's  scheme  of  them  is 
perhaps,  on  the  whole,  the  best. 

As  to  the  practical  questions,  how  we  can  help  reju- 
venation and  delay  senescence,  he  states  that  he  has 
nothing  to  suggest,  although  he  believes  it  possible  that 
some  time  in  the  future  a  means  may  be  found  of  in- 
creasing the  activities  and  volume  of  the  nucleus  and 
restricting  the  growth  and  differentiation  of  the  proto- 
plasm, which  would  mean  a  prolongation  of  youth. 

Minot  concludes  his  volume  with  a  glance  at  paidology 
in  order  to  stress  the  great  relative  importance  for  both 
the  bodily  and  mental  development  of  the  early  stages 
of  life.  The  baby  develops  faster  than  the  child;  the 
child,  than  the  youth,  etc.,  and  the  rate  of  psychic  unfold- 
ment  declines  very  rapidly  from  the  first,  as  does  that 
of  the  body.  Week  by  week,  from  birth,  there  is  a 
remarkable  expansion  of  life.  Each  one  of  the  senses 
learns  how  to  function  effectively  and  most  of  them 
learn  to  attract  the  attention,  the  power  of  correlating 
movements  and  making  voluntary  ones,  and  the  rudi- 
ments of  memory  and  association  are  laid  down,  as  are 
the  bases  of  disposition.  The  infant  from  the  earliest 
months  of  its  life  knows  much  of  the  persons  and  objects 
in  its  environment  and  perhaps  has  even  discovered  its 
own  ego.  It  touches,  handles,  tastes  everything;  is  an 
inveterate  investigator  in  an  ever  widening  field  of  re- 
search; has  at  least  a  sense  of  intercourse  and  com- 
panionship ;  is  already  at  home  with  time,  space,  cause, 
and  relation;  its  feelings,  will,  and  even  intellect  are 
developed,  and  in  this  order;  and  the  foundations  for 
knowledge  and  achievement  are  laid.  Thus  the  child  of 
school  age  is  already  senile  so  far  as  its  infancy  is  con- 
cerned and  the  boy's  psychic  processes  are  retarded, 
hard,  and  unspontaneous.  Learning  begins  to  be  diffi- 
cult. Nature  no  longer  shoots  the  mind  up  the  phyletic 

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SENESCENCE 

ladder  but  it  must  climb  and  grow  henceforth  by  work 
as  well  as  playwise.  Thus  man's  mental  powers  show 
the  same  law  of  progressive  retardation  as  does  his 
physical  growth.  Instead  of  drawing  the  dead  line  at 
forty,  as  Osier  did,  Minot  draws  it  at  twenty-five.  Had 
he  been  versed  in  paidology  or  even  known  the  Freudian 
conceptions  of  infancy,  he  might  have  greatly  amplified 
his  treatment  of  this  stage  of  the  psychic  life  with  which 
his  volume  closes.  But  as  it  is,  there  are  certain  definite 
criticisms  of  his  conclusions  concerning  gerontology. 

First,  as  I  have  said,  he  only  attempts  to  show  the 
cause  and  has  nothing  to  say  as  to  the  cure  of  senescence. 
But  he  was  not  in  quest  of  a  panacea  and  was  too  true 
to  the  limitations  of  his  science  to  pretend  to  have  found 
one.  This  will  be  a  disappointment  only  to  those  laymen 
who  read  him  in  furtherance  of  this  pragmatic  quest. 

More  serious  is  the  objection  that,  according  to  his 
criterion  and  curves  of  declining  growth  rate,  we  are 
really  old  when  we  stop  growing,  for  the  mature  young 
man  and  the  very  old  one  both  are  living  but  a  very 
little  above  the  deadline.  On  this  view,  the  extinct 
saurians  that  grew  all  their  lives  were  far  more  vital 
than  creatures  that  attain  a  relatively  fixed  and  constant 
size  early  and  then  stop  growing.  Growth  is  one  measure 
of  vitality,  but  surely  function  is  another.  The  dynamic 
curve  of  energy  and  the  power  of  work  rises  rapidly 
as  that  of  growth  declines  and  the  curve  of  brain  work 
reaches  its  apex  somewhat  later.  Determining  the  in- 
crement of  pounds  or  even  of  foot  pounds  of  energy 
is  not  the  sole  measure  of  vitality. 

Again,  if  all  differentiation  is  progress  toward  death, 
evolution  itself,  instead  of  being  progressive,  is  really 
retrogressive  and  the  ascending  orders  of  life  are  only 
a  funeral  march  to  the  grave.  Minot  admits  this  in 
principle  but  says  that  although  the  advance  it  brings  is 

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BIOLOGY  AND  PHYSIOLOGY 

bought  at  the  price  of  death,  it  is  worth  all  it  costs. 
So  it  is,  but  it  will  not  be  if  the  organization  and  its 
increase  in  heterogeneity  of  structure  are  only  mor- 
phological. It  pays  because  of  the  quest  for  the  good, 
the  beautiful,  and  the  true;  because  of  science,  law,  love, 
the  control  of  nature,  the  organization  of  society;  be- 
cause of  the  supreme  joy  of  just  being  alive  and  the 
exhilarating  sense  of  progress.  The  more  evolved  all 
creatures  are,  including  man,  the  more  the  pleasure  field 
overlaps  the  field  of  pain. 

As  the  hypercivilized  mind  often  longs  back,  like 
Rousseau,  to  an  idyllic  state  of  nature;  or  the  world- 
weary  pietist  longs  back  to  God ;  and,  we  may  now  add, 
as  the  psychoanalyst  finds  what  he  deems  a  psychody- 
namic  equivalent  for  this  trend,  in  a  perhaps  yet  more 
exaggerated  form,  in  the  flight  from  reality,  seen  in 
dementia  praecox  and  in  longing  for  the  mother's  lap 
and,  as  Ferenczi  says,  even  for  her  womb;  so  Minot's 
view  of  life  might  almost  justify  a  kind  of  homesickness 
for  the  state  of  the  ovum  or  the  immortal  germ  plasm, 
for  in  this  state  of  incipiency  a  single-celled  organism 
performs  all  the  functions  of  life,  not  only  nutritive  and 
reproductive  but  sensient  and  motor.  It  is  at  this  stage, 
when  all  cells  do  all  things,  that  the  spirit  of  life  cele- 
brates its  highest  triumph.  The  sigh  for  lost  youth  is 
here  deepest.  Life  itself  as  we  know  it  from  this  view- 
point seems  a  little  falsetto  and  pathetic,  for  it  is 
throughout,  in  a  sense,  a  fall. 

The  analyst  is  also  tempted  to  venture  a  little  farther 
and  to  raise  the  question  whether  the  life  of  the  author 
of  this  view  itself  did  not  subconsciously  contribute  a 
little  to  reinforce  his  theory.  With  a  none  too  rich  and 
full  childhood  and  youth,  waiting  for  years  for  adequate 
recognition,  passionately  if  not  precociously  devoted  to 
the  study  of  embryology,  in  which  field  he  became  one 
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SENESCENCE 

of  the  ablest  and  most  accomplished  of  all  leaders,10  it 
would  not  be  surprising  if  he  found  certain  compensa- 
tions in  devoting  his  life  to  a  study  of  that  stage  in  which 
is  manifestations  are  most  active,  and  ably  developed 
in  this  field  apperception  centers  he  somewhat  over- 
worked, while  his  self-affirmation  and  the  instinctive 
impulse  we  all  have  for  due  recognition  give  a  subtle 
self-satisfaction  in  reiterating  the  paradox  that  death  is 
most  active  near  the  beginning  rather  than  the  end  of 
the  life  cycle.  Whether  this  suggestion  has  any  validity 
or  not,  no  one  has  ever  more  challengingly  presented 
the  problem  of  why  the  rate  of  growth  declines  from 
first  to  last,  and  whether  it  be  due  to  an  inevitable  loss 
of  the  initial  momentum  or  biological  elan  vital  or  to 
checks,  arrests,  and  inhibitions  of  it,  some  of  which  may 
be  removed.  The  very  intensity  of  its  early  manifesta- 
tions, if  it  gives  us  a  haunting  sense  of  loss  also  rein- 
forces the  hope  that  the  high  potential  with  which  we 
all  started  somehow,  sometime,  may  be  better  conserved, 
so  that  perhaps  here,  again,  as  with  Metchnikoff 's  views, 
the  morale  of  Minot's  conclusions  is,  on  the  whole,  op- 
timistic. 

Charles  Manning  Child,  professor  of  biology  in  the 
University  of  Chicago,  has  given  the  most  comprehen- 
sive statement  of  his  problem  to  date  from  the  stand- 
point of  his  science,  although,  as  we  shall  see,  much  has 
been  done  since.11  His  most  interesting  and  important 
contribution  for  our  purpose  is  his  refutation  of  the 
older  view  that  life  is  always  a  progressive  process  and 
that  true  rejuvenescence  does  not  occur.  Of  course,  in 
higher  animals  the  progressive  features  are  predominant 
and  development  ends  in  death.  But  the  above  general- 

10  See  his  monumental  textbook,  A  Laboratory  Textbook  of  Embryology, 
1903,  38o  pp. 
M  Senescence  and  Rejuvenescence,  1915,  481  pp. 

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BIOLOGY  AND  PHYSIOLOGY 

ization  does  not  take  due  account  of  what  occurs  in 
lower  organisms,  while  even  in  man  and  other  mammals 
the  different  tissues  do  not  undergo  senescence  either 
alike  or  synchronously.  Some,  for  example,  cells  of  the 
epidermis  remain  relatively  young  till  and  after  the 
death  of  the  individual.  In  other  tissues  such  replace- 
ment of  old,  differentiated,  or  dead  cells  by  younger  ones 
occurs  more  or  less  extensively  and  tissue  regeneration 
following  injury  occurs  more  or  less  in  all  tissues  save 
only  the  nervous  system.  Such  regeneration  retards  the 
aging  of  the  tissue  or  organ  as  a  whole.  Minot  thought 
that  in  such  cases  regeneration  arises  from  cells  or  parts 
of  cells  that  have  never  undergone  differentiation,  so 
that  even  in  such  cases  development  is  progressive  and 
not  regressive.  Even  if  he  is  right  in  maintaining  that 
fibrillar  substance  cannot  regenerate,  it  must  be  noted 
that  new  fibrillar  substance  does  arise  in  continuity  with 
the  old,  while  isolated  cells  apparently  do  not  produce  it. 
Child  maintains  that  there  is  differentiation  in  such 
cases  and  that  these  regenerating  cells  have  returned  to 
a  kind  of  activity  characteristic  of  the  early  stages  of 
embryonic  development ;  that  is,  that  cells  can  assume  an 
activity  characteristic  of  an  earlier  stage.  "Even  in  the 
outgrowth  of  new  nerve  fibers  from  the  central  stump 
of  a  cut  nerve  there  is  return  to  a  process  of  growth 
and  development  which  is  normally  characteristic  of  an 
earlier  stage  of  development."  Thus  regression  and 
differentiation  do  occur  in  most  tissues  of  man  and 
higher  animals,  although  cells  of  one  tissue  can  never 
produce  those  of  another. 

Again,  after  hibernation  regeneration  is  often  exten- 
sive. The  large  proportion  of  young  cells  in  the  body 
in  such  cases  renders  the  animal  as  a  whole  appreciably 
younger  than  at  the  beginning  of  hibernation,  so  that 
the  periodic  cycle  of  activity  and  hibernation  is  much 
like  an  age  cycle.  This  rejuvenescence  may  begin  during 

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SENESCENCE 

the  hibernation,  when  the  animal  is  living  on  its  own 
substance.  Again,  we  see  periodic  changes  that  resemble 
the  age  cycle  in  glands.  In  the  pancreas  cell,  for  ex- 
ample, the  loading  of  the  cell  is  both  morphologically 
and  physiologically  similar  to  senescence,  and  the  dis- 
charge, to  rejuvenescence.  -  In  this  case  the  change 
occurs  in  individual  cells  without  cell  reproduction. 
Even  the  cells  of  the  nervous  system  throughout  mature 
life  possess  no  appreciable  capacity  for  differentiation 
and  regeneration  beyond  the  power  to  regenerate  fibers 
arising  from  them.  Child  believes  that  the  effect  of  a 
change  in  mental  occupation  or  of  a  vacation  may  afford 
"some  slight  degree  of  rejuvenescence  of  the  nerve  cells." 
Verworn,  he  tells  us,  distinguishes  between  fatigue  due 
to  accumulations  that  check  metabolism  and  exhaustion 
due  to  lack  of  oxygen,  both  of  which  may  cause  senility 
in  nerve  cells.  "Thus  exhaustion  resembles  senility  as 
death  from  asphyxiation  resembles  death  from  old  age." 
Recovery  from  exhaustion  is  not  the  same  sort  of  change 
as  rejuvenescence  except  as  it  involves  increase  in  the 
rate  of  oxidization.  But  fatigue  and  recovery  constitute 
a  cycle  resembling  closely  the  age  cycle. 

Studies  of  starvation  suggest  the  same  thing.  Various 
experiments  have  shown  that  in  the  later  but  premortal 
stage  of  starvation  there  is  a  certain  activation  of  vital 
processes,  including  heat  production,  and  it  is  possible 
that  this  has  some  significance  for  regeneration.  Higher 
animals  are  apparently  unable  to  use  their  own  tissues 
as  a  source  of  nutrition  to  any  such  extent  as  the  lower 
forms  can  do,  and  this  is  probably  connected  with  a 
higher  physiological  stability  of  the  tissue  components. 
The  body  weight  often  does,  however,  increase  and  be- 
come greater  after  starvation  than  it  was  before,  so  that 
a  fasting  period  is  followed  by  an  increase  in  vigor  and 
body  weight  and  hence  the  wide  belief  in  its  therapeutic 
value.  On  the  other  hand,  the  injurious  effects  of  over- 

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BIOLOGY  AND  PHYSIOLOGY 

nutrition  in  man  are  supposed  to  be  due  to  the  accumula- 
tion of  food  or  to  intoxication,  but  it  is  possible  that 
overnutrition  actually  increases  the  rate  of  senescence 
by  augmenting  in  the  cellular  substratum  not  only  the 
decomposition  of  food  but  other  substances  that  decrease 
the  rate  of  metabolism.  There  are  certainly  many  in- 
stances of  longevity  in  man  on  a  low  diet.  Again,  after 
certain  bacterial  diseases,  for  example,  typhoid,  the  body 
weight  often  becomes  greater  and  vigor  increases. 
While  low  diet  often  does  good,  it  may,  on  the  other 
hand,  aggravate  many  diseases.  Frogs  and  salamanders 
may  live  a  long  time  without  food  and  undergo  great 
reduction,  and  starvation  sometimes  has  a  directly  reju- 
venating effect.  The  animals  grow  much  more  rapidly 
afterward  and  use  a  larger  percentage  of  nutrition  in 
growth  and  attain  a  larger  size  than  those  continuously 
fed. 

Death  of  cells  apparently  from  old  age  occurs  at  every 
stage  of  development  and  many  cells  do  not  die  when 
the  individual  does,  for  he  does  so  only  because  some 
tissue  or  organ  that  is  essential  reaches  the  point  of 
death.  Some  have  thought  glands  are  primarily  respon- 
sible for  it;  but  others,  whose  view  Child  adopts,  hold 
that  it  is  the  nervous  system,  especially  its  cephalic  part, 
that  dies  first  in  man.  In  various  insects  and,  for  ex- 
ample, the  salamander,  death  occurs  almost  at  once  after 
the  exclusion  of  the  sexual  products,  but  this  is  exhaus- 
tion. In  most,  the  length  of  life  of  the  individual  is 
determined  by  that  of  the  shortest-lived  essential  organ 
or  of  the  tissue  that  is  least  capable  of  regression  and 
rejuvenation  and  the  development  of  which,  therefore, 
remains  most  continuously  progressive.  In  cold-blooded 
animals  where  the  rate  of  metabolism  is  dependent  on 
external  temperature,  senescence  can  be  reduced  by  cold, 
and  in  certain  lower  invertebrates  by  the  simple  method 
of  underfeeding.  When  cells  lose  the  capacity  to  divide, 

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SENESCENCE 

they  differentiate,  grow  old,  and  sooner  or  later  die, 
although  death  everywhere  is  the  result  of  final  progres- 
sive development  if  this  process  goes  far  enough  and 
is  not  interrupted  by  regression  caused  by  the  need  of 
repair,  reproduction,  or  lack  of  food.  Death  is  due,  thus, 
to  increased  physiological  stability  of  the  substratum  of 
the  organism  or  to  an  increasing  degree  of  differentia- 
tion that  this  general  stability  makes  possible.  And  as 
individuation  increases,  death  becomes  more  and  more 
inevitable.  Rubner  calculated  the  total  energy  require- 
ments in  calories  for  doubling  the  body  weight  after 
birth  and  the  requirements  per  kilogram  in  body  weight 
for  the  whole  period  of  life,  for  a  number  of  domestic 
animals.  His  totals  for  all,  except  man,  showed  close 
agreement,  and  hence  he  concludes  that  the  amounts  of 
energy  required  are  the  same  in  all  species  except  for 
man,  who  has  a  far  greater  amount  of  energy,  that  is, 
a  smaller  percentage  of  the  energy  of  food  is  consumed 
in  growth  and  maintenance  of  body  weight  and  more 
in  activity  than  in  other  animals.  Very  likely  domestic 
animals  expend  less  energy  than  their  wild  congeners 
but  it  is  certainly  difficult  to  correlate  these  results  with 
Minot's  criteria  of  age  as  measured  by  the  decrease  of 
growth. 

Child  concludes  that  senescence  is  more  continuous  in 
man  than  in  the  lower  forms.  His  long  evolution  has 
given  a  physiological  stability  to  the  protoplasmic  sub- 
stratum and  a  high  degree  of  individuation  results  from 
this.  But  the  central  nervous  system,  being  least  capable 
of  progressive  change,  always  dies  first,  so  that  the 
length  of  man's  life  is  that  of  his  nervous  system  and 
physiological  death  and  senescence  inhere  in  its  for- 
tunes. In  the  lower  forms  the  death  point  may  never 
be  attained  under  normal  conditions  because  of  the  low 
stability  of  the  substratum  and  the  consequent  decrease 
of  individuation  that  permits  the  frequent  occurrence 

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BIOLOGY  AND  PHYSIOLOGY 

of  a  high  degree  of  rejuvenation.  But  in  the  higher 
forms  of  life  the  capacity  for  the  latter  is  limited  by 
greater  stability;  and  this,  again,  has  been  acquired 
through  a  process  of  evolution  lasting  through  so  many 
millennia  that  we  must  certainly  "admit  that  this  task 
[man's  rejuvenation]  may  prove  to  be  one  of  consider- 
able difficulty." 

Thus,  according  to  Child,  whose  views  are  the  most 
philosophical  and  insightful  in  the  field  of  biology  up 
to  date  for  our  purposes,  senescence  and  rejuvenescence 
are  both  going  on  all  the  time  in  all  cells  and  organs 
and  are  not  special  processes.  In  most  cells  and  in  most 
lower  organisms  dedifferentiation  and  despecialization 
of  structure  and  function,  which  we  may  term  in  general 
regressive  tendencies,  are  always  less  pronounced  than 
progressive  impulsions,  while  the  latter  predominate  still 
more  in  the  higher  forms  of  life.  It  is  "quite  impossible 
to  account  for  the  course  of  evolution  and  particularly 
for  many  so-called  adaptations  in  organisms  without  the 
inheritance  of  such  acquired  characters,  but  since  thou- 
sands or  ten  thousands  of  generations  may  be  necessary 
in  many  cases  for  inheritance  of  this  kind  to  become 
appreciable,  it  is  not  strange  that  experimental  evidence 
upon  this  point  is  still  conflicting"  (p.  463).  Germ  plasm 
is  not  something  apart  from  or  uninfluenced  by  all  that 
goes  on  in  its  immediate  environment  within  the  body. 
Regression  and  dedifferentiation  involve  reconstitution 
and  always  approximate  reproduction.  To  state  the 
matter  roughly,  all  processes  involved  both  in  growing 
old  and  in  growing  young  might  conceivably  be  arranged 
on  a  kind  of  Porphery  ladder  with  agamic  forms  of 
indefinite  reproduction,  as  illustrated  in  unicellular  or- 
ganisms or  in  germ  plasm  at  the  lower  or  summum  gens 
end,  and  the  most  differentiated  cells  that  have  progres- 
sively lost  the  power  of  reproducing  the  whole  organism, 
regenerating  lost  parts,  power  to  grow,  divide,  and 
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SENESCENCE 

nourish  themselves,  at  the  top  of  the  ladder,  representing 
the  infima  species.  On  such  a  ladder,  development,  dif- 
ferentiation, and  individuation  is  progress  up,  and  all 
rejuvenating  activities  are  descent  toward  the  most 
generalized  function  of  perpetual  self-reproduction. 
This  conception  is  in  very  suggestive  harmony  with  the 
analogous  psychoanalytic  law  of  restitution  to  mental 
health  by  reversion  to  a  more  primitive  state  of  psychic 
development,  for  all  these  methods  might  be  called  re- 
juvenation cures. 

Physiological  integration,  with  its  increasing  stability 
of  the  structural  substratum,  makes  senescence  cumula- 
tive as  we  go  up  the  scale  of  evolution,  so  that  it  is  ever 
less  balanced  or  offset  by  rejuvenation,  reproduction,  or 
other  regressive  changes,  as  is  the  case  with  simple 
organisms  whose  life  cycle  consists  merely  of  brief  al- 
ternating phases  of  progression  and  regression,  for  the 
large  protozoan  cell  about  to  divide  is  old  compared 
with  the  two  smaller  daughter  cells  formed  from  it. 
Senescence  is  retardation  and  rejuvenescence  is  the  ac- 
celeration that  works  by  transforming,  readapting,  and 
even  sloughing  off  old  and  useless  structures.  It  will 
take  long  to  modify  the  course  of  evolutionary  processes 
that  are  the  result  of  millions  of  years  of  alternating 
progressive  and  regressive  changes,  but  not  only  the 
phenomena  of  rejuvenescence  but  "sports"  and  saltatory 
mutation,  to  say  nothing  of  the  findings  of  recent  experi- 
ments showing  how  life  and  even  activities  of  somatic 
cells  separated  from  the  body  and  given  a  more  favor- 
able environment  may  be  indefinitely  prolonged,  point 
toward  a  vast  reservoir  of  vitality.  Thus  we  come  to 
a  new  appreciation  of  the  incalculable  energy  behind  all 
the  phenomena  of  animate  existence  and  the  hope  is 
irrepressible  that  somehow,  although  we  have  as  yet  no 
idea  how  or  when,  we  may  abate  or  inhibit  the  forces 

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BIOLOGY  AND  PHYSIOLOGY 

that  check  or  repress  it  and  man  may  emerge  into  a 
fuller  and  even  a  longer  life. 

Jacques  Loeb,  of  the  Rockefeller  Institute,  has  devoted 
himself  for  many  years,  with  a  rare  combination  of 
great  learning  and  originality,  to  problems  directly  or 
indirectly  bearing  upon  old  age  and  death.12  As  his 
studies  of  tropism  show,  he  is  prone  to  mechanical  and 
chemical  interpretations;  and  since  science  has  more  or 
less  eliminated  smallpox,  typhoid,  yellow  fever,  malaria, 
rabies,  diphtheria,  meningitis,  etc.,  the  citizens  of  scien- 
tific nations  will  sometime,  he  thinks,  be  guaranteed  a 
pretty  fair  probability  of  a  much  longer  duration  of  life 
than  they  now  enjoy.  If  we  define  life  as  the  sum  of 
all  those  forces  that  resist  death,  which  means  disin- 
tegration, the  latter  is  comparable  to  digestion,  which 
transforms  meat  into  soluble  products  by  two  ferments, 
pepsin  in  the  stomach  and  trypsin  in  the  intestine.  These 
ferments  break  up  the  mass  into  molecules  small  enough 
to  be  absorbed  by  the  blood,  and  both  of  them  exist  not 
merely  in  digestive  organs  but  probably  in  all  living  cells. 
They  do  not  destroy  our  body,  perhaps  because  the  co- 
operation of  both  is  required  to  do  so  and  this  is  possible 
only  at  a  certain  degree  of  acidity,  which  cannot  be 
reached  in  the  living  body  because  respiration  is  con- 
stantly removing  acid.  Death  thus  really  comes  when 
respiration  ceases. 

Of  course  there  is  another  cause  of  disintegration, 
namely,  microorganisms  from  the  air  and  in  the  intes- 
tines. During  life  the  cells  are  protected  by  a  normal 
membrane  that  is  destroyed  in  death  and  then  the  action 
of  the  microorganisms  can  superpose  itself  upon  that 

"  For  our  purpose  his  views  are  best  summed  up  in  his  The  Organism 
as  a  Whole  from  a  Physiochemical  Viewpoint,  1916,  379  pp.  See  more 
specifically  his  "Natural  Death  and  Duration  of  Life,"  Science,  1919,  p. 
578  et  seq. 

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SENESCENCE 

of  digestion.  Thus  in  man  death  is  stopping  the  breath 
and  this  may  be  done  by  poison,  disease,  etc.  The  prob- 
lem is  whether  there  is  any  natural  death,  for  if  not 
we  ought  to  be  able  to  prolong  life  indefinitely.  But 
we  cannot  experiment  on  man  because  neither  the  intes- 
tines nor  respiratory  tract  can  Be  kept  free  from 
microbes.  A  Russian,  Bogdanow,  solved  this  problem 
for  the  fly,  putting  its  fresh  eggs  into  bichlorid  of  mer- 
cury, which  a  few  survived,  with  no  microorganisms  on 
the  outside.  These  eggs  were  then  developed  on  steril- 
ized meat  in  sterile  flasks  and  Guyemot  raised  80  genera- 
tions of  fruit  flies  thus.  Loeb  himself  and  Northrop 
raised  87  generations.  Their  dead  bodies  were  trans- 
ferred to  culture  media  such  as  are  used  for  the  growth 
of  bacteria  and  more  were  produced  thus  for  years. 
Hence  fruit  flies  freed  from  infection  and  well  fed  would 
not  entirely  escape  death  and  probably  higher  organisms 
would  thus  die  from  internal  causes  were  external  ones 
excluded.  Eggs,  for  example,  those  of  starfish,  ripen 
and  disintegrate  very  rapidly  if  not  fertilized  by  the 
process  of  autolysis,  which  acts  only  after  the  egg  is 
ripe.  The  fertilized  egg,  however,  does  not  degenerate 
in  the  presence  of  oxygen  but  dies  in  its  absence,  so  that 
we  might  say  that  the  fertilized  egg  is  a  strict  ae'robe 
and  the  unfertilized,  an  anaerobe.  The  entrance  of  the 
spermatozoon  saves  the  life  of  the  egg. 

Is  natural  death  due  to  the  gradual  production  in  the 
body  of  harmful  toxins  or  to  the  gradual  destruction  of 
substances  required  to  keep  up  youthful  vigor?  If 
the  latter,  the  natural  duration  of  life  would  be  the  time 
necessary  to  complete  a  series  of  chemical  reactions  that 
would  produce  enough  of  the  toxins  to  kill.  Now,  the 
period  necessary  to  complete  a  chemical  reaction  dimin- 
ishes rapidly  when  the  temperature  is  raised,  and  in- 
creases when  it  is  lowered.  This  time  is  doubled  or 
trebled  when  the  temperature  is  lowered  by  10°  C.  The 

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BIOLOGY  AND  PHYSIOLOGY 

influence  of  temperature  on  the  rate  of  these  processes 
seems  typical.  If  the  duration  of  life,  then,  is  the  time 
required  for  the  completion  of  certain  chemical  reac- 
tions in  the  body,  we  should  expect  it  to  be  doubled  or 
trebled  when  we  lower  the  temperature.  We  can  test 
this  only  where,  as  in  our  flies,  infection  is  avoided. 
Northrop  put  their  fresh  eggs  on  sterilized  yeast  at  a 
temperature  of  0.2°  C,  and  the  higher  temperatures 
selected  were  5°,  10°,  and  25°.  All  the  flies  died  at 
nearly  the  same  time  when  kept  in  the  same  temperature. 
The  total  average  duration  of  life  was  2^2  days  at 
30°  C.,  when  nearly  all  of  them  died.  At  10°  C.  it  was 
1 77  days.  Thus  heat  accelerates  all  chemical  action,  and 
here  we  have  the  duration  of  life  increased  from  200  to 
300  per  cent.  In  man  the  body  temperature  is  constant, 
for  example,  35.5°  C.  whether  in  the  tropics  or  the 
Arctic  regions.  If  we  could  reduce  our  temperature, 
we  might  live  as  long  as  Methuselah.  If  we  could  keep 
the  body  temperature  at  7.5°  C.  and  follow  the  above 
ratio,  we  should  live  about  27  times  70  or  about  1,900 
years.  Thus  the  duration  of  life  seems  to  be  the  time 
required  for  the  completion  of  a  chemical  reaction  or  a 
series  of  them.  The  latter  may  be  the  gradual  accumula- 
tion of  harmful  products  or  the  destruction  of  sub- 
stances required  for  sustaining  youth.  Not  only  are 
unicellular  organisms  immortal  and  the  life  of  all  their 
successive  generations  a  continuum,  but  a  bit  of  cancer 
tumor  can  be  transplanted  to  other  individuals  and  there 
grow  larger,  and  a  bit  from  this  second  individual  trans- 
ferred to  a  third,  and  so  on  indefinitely;  so  that  the 
same  cancer  cell  continues  to  live  on  in  successive  trans- 
plantations throughout  many  individual  lives.  It  has 
thus  outlived  many  times  the  natural  life  of  the  mouse. 
Indeed,  it  seems  to  be  able  to  live  on  indefinitely  and 
Carrel  has  shown  that  this  is  true  of  other  normal  cells. 
Thus  death  may  not  be  at  all  inherent  in  the  individual 
283 


SENESCENCE 

cell  but  only  be  the  fate  of  more  complicated  organisms 
in  which  the  different  types  of  structure  depend  on  each 
other.  Certain  cells  are  able  to  produce  substances  that 
slowly  become  harmful  to  some  vital  organ  or  center  and 
its  collapse  brings  death  to  the  whole. 

In  man  there  is  no  sharp  limit  between  youth  and 
maturity  unless  it  be  marked  by  puberty,  but  in  lower 
forms  of  life  it  is  demarcated  by  a  metamorphosis.  The 
tadpole,  for  example,  becomes  a  frog  in  the  third  or 
fourth  month  of  its  life  and  this  process  can  be  acceler- 
rated  by  feeding  the  creature  with  thyroid,  no  matter 
from  what  animal.  Gudernatsch  was  able  to  make  frogs 
no  larger  than  a  fly.  Allen  showed  that  the  tadpole  with 
the  thyroid  removed  can  never  become  a  frog,  although 
it  may  live  long  and  continue  to  grow  larger  than  the 
usual  tadpole;  but  if  such  aged  tadpoles  are  fed  with 
thyroid  they  promptly  become  frogs.  Salamanders 
metamorphose  by  merely  throwing  off  the  gills  and 
changing  the  skin  and  tail,  and  the  Mexican  axoloti 
maintains  the  tadpole  form  through  life;  but  even  it, 
when  fed  with  thyroid,  promptly  metamorphoses. 
Schwingle  induced  metamorphosis  in  tadpoles  by  feed- 
ing them  with  a  trace  of  inorganic  iodine.  Thus  the 
duration  of  the  tadpole  stage  seems  to  be  the  time 
required  to  secure  a  certain  compound  containing  iodine. 
Insects  hatched  as  maggots  will  become  chrysalides  and 
then  flies,  but  if  thyroid  is  fed  to  the  maggot  it  acceler- 
ates the  metamorphosis,  although  we  do  not  know 
whether  it  is  due  to  the  accumulation  or  formation  of 
definite  compounds. 

Loeb  sought  to  determine  whether  the  duration  of  the 
maggot  in  the  larval  stage  could  be  due  to  temperature 
and  he  found  that  this  had  effects  similar  to  those  de- 
scribed above.  The  larval  period  lasted  5.8  days  at 
25°  C.  and  17.8  days  at  15°.  The  total  duration  of  life 
was  38.5  days  at  25°  and  123.96  at  15°,  both  ratios  being 
284 


BIOLOGY  AND  PHYSIOLOGY 

i  to  3.  Thus  the  influence  of  temperature  upon  the 
larval  period  was  like  that  which  it  exerted  on  adult  life. 
The  same  effect  he  found  in  salamanders,  all  of  which 
suggested  to  him  the  conclusion  that  the  duration  of 
life  and  of  the  larval  period  is  really  the  time 
required  for  the  completion  of  certain  chemical  reac- 
tions. The  cessation  of  respiration,  which  means  death, 
and  alterations  in  circulation,  which  mean  metamorpho- 
sis or  the  death  of  youth,  are  critical  periods  and  per- 
haps both  points  are  reached  when  a  certain  toxin  is 
formed  in  sufficient  quantity  or  when  a  necessary  sub- 
stance is  destroyed  or  reduced.  Thus  a  shortened  youth 
can,  in  amphibians,  be  prolonged  by  modifying  the  tem- 
perature or  offering  the  specific  substance  that  causes 
metamorphosis,  namely,  iodine  or  thyroid.  There  is  no 
end  to  the  substances  capable  of  hastening  death ;  shall 
we  ever  find  one  that  can  prolong  life  ?  13 

Pearl's  experiments  on  the  fruit  fly "  show  that 
where  long-  and  short-lived  strains  are  mixed,  the  first 
generation  they  produce  is  longer-lived  than  either  par- 


11  Prof.  W.  J.  V.  Osterhout,  "On  the  Nature  of  Life  and  Death,"  Science, 
April  15,  1921,  thinks  that  we  can  measure  by  quantitative  methods  such 
fundamental  conceptions  as  vitality,  injury,  recovery,  and  death,  by  elec- 
trical resistance,  which,  he  thinks,  is  an  excellent  index  of  what  is 
normal  condition.  He  believes  that  this  holds  for  both  plants  and 
animals,  for  all  agents  known  to  be  injurious  change  the  electrical 
resistance  at  once.  He  also  thinks  this  resistance  proportional  to  a 
substance  he  believes  he  found  and  decomposed  by  a  series  of  consecutive 
reactions  and  that  on  this  basis  we  can  write  an  equation  that  permits 
us  to  predict  the  course  of  the  death  process  under  various  conditions, 
so  that  we  can  say  that  at  a  certain  stage  it  is  one- fourth  or  one-half 
completed.  Stated  chemically,  the  normal  life  process  consists  of  a  series 
of  reactions  in  which  a  substance  O  is  broken  down  into  S,  and  this  in 
turn  breaks  down  into  A,  M,  B,  and  so  on.  "Under  normal  conditions  M 
is  formed  as  readily  as  it  is  decomposed  and  this  results  in  a  constant 
condition  of  the  electrical  resistance  and  other  properties  of  the  cell. 
When,  however,  conditions  are  changed  so  that  M  is  decomposed  more 
rapidly  than  it  is  formed,  the  electrical  resistance  decreases"  and  other 
properties  are  simultaneously  altered.  Thus  death  results  from  a  dis- 
turbance in  the  relative  rates  of  the  reactions  that  constantly  go  on. 

^Sci.  Mo.,  Aug.,  1921. 

-    285 


SENESCENCE 

ent  and  that  for  subsequent  generations  Mendelian  laws 
hold  even  for  longevity,  so  that  there  is  increased  vigor 
in  the  hybrid  generation  due  to  the  mingling  of  germ 
plasms  that  are  different.  As  to  bacterial  invasion,  the 
stability  and  resistance  of  the  organism  is  also  a  factor, 
but  by  rearing  insects  kept  free  from  all  such  invasion 
it  appears  that  "bacteria  play  but  an  essentially  acci- 
dental role  in  determining  the  length  of  the  span  of  life 
in  comparison  with  the  influence  of  heredity."  Pearl 
criticizes  the  conclusion  of  statisticians  like  Hersch  that 
poverty  shortens  human  life,  despite  the  fact  that  this  is 
perhaps  the  most  potent  single  environmental  factor 
affecting  civilized  man  to-day.  But  we  have  no  real 
evidence  that  if  the  conditions  between  the  rich  and  poor 
were  reversed  the  death  rate  would  also  be  reversed. 
The  influence  of  high  temperature,  which  is  known  to 
accelerate  all  the  metabolic  processes,  does  not  interfere 
with  the  predominant  influence  of  heredity  because  it 
only  accelerates  life  processes  exactly  in  the  same  way 
that  it  accelerates  chemical  activities  and  the  same  is 
more  or  less  true  of  the  influence  of  the  secretions  of  the 
endocrine  glands. 

Pearl  concludes  15  that  it  has  already  been  demon- 
strated that  cells  from  nearly  every  part  of  the  metazoan 
soma  are  potentially  immortal,  even  in  the  case  of 
tumors  by  transplantation,  though  of  course  not  yet  for 
such  exceedingly  specialized  structures  as  hair  and  nails. 
Under  artificial  conditions  cells  from  nearly  all  organs 
can  be  made  to  long  outlive  the  body  from  which  they 
are  taken,  just  as  grafts  from  apple  trees  may  be  passed 
on  indefinitely  to  successive  generations.  Thus  death  is 
not  a  necessary  inherent  .consequent  of  life  in  even 
somatic  cells  but  "potential  longevity  inheres  in  most  of 
the  different  kinds  of  cells  for  the  metazoan  body  except 

M  Sci.  Mo.,  Apr.,  1921. 

286 


BIOLOGY  AND  PHYSIOLOGY 

those  which  are  extremely  differentiated  for  peculiar 
functions."  The  special  conditions  under  which  this 
occurs  are  often  very  complex  and  differ  greatly  for 
different  tissues  and  animals,  and  we  shall  probably 
know  far  more  later  of  the  chemico-physical  conditions 
necessary  to  insure  continuous  life,  for  these  studies  are 
new,  having  begun  barely  twenty  years  ago.  The  reason 
that  all  these  essential  tissues  are  not  actually  immortal 
in  multicellular  animals  is  that  the  individual  parts  do 
not  find  in  the  body  the  conditions  necessary  for  their 
continued  existence,  each  part  being  dependent  upon 
other  parts.  This  view  differs  from  Minot's  that  there 
is  a  specific  inherent  lethal  process  going  on  within  the 
cells  themselves  that  causes  senescence.  Pearl  con- 
cludes "that  these  visible  cytological  changes  are  ex- 
pressive of  effects,  not  causes,  and  that  they  are  the 
effects  of  the  organization  of  the  body  as  a  whole  as  a 
system  of  mutually  dependent  parts  and  not  a  specific 
inherent  and  inevitable  cellular  process.  Cells  in  culture 
in  vitro  do  not  grow  old.  We  see  none  of  the  character- 
istic senescent  changes  in  them."  Thus  it  may  be  in- 
ferred that  when  cells  show  characteristic  senescent 
changes  it  is  because  they  are  "reflecting  in  their 
morphology  and  physiology  a  consequence  of  their 
mutually  dependent  association  in  the  body  as  a  whole 
and  not  any  necessary  progressive  process  inherent  in 
themselves.  Thus  senescence  is  an  attribute  of  the 
multicellular  body  as  a  whole  consequent  upon  its 
scheme  of  morphologic  and  dynamic  organization." 
The  lethal  process,  thus,  does  not  originate  in  the  cells 
themselves.  "In  short,  senescence  is  not  a  primary 
attribute  of  the  physiological  economy  of  cells  as  such." 
It  has  long  been  known,  as  we  have  seen,  that  uni- 
cellular organisms  could  go  on  dividing  indefinitely  and 
that  germ  plasm  had  a  potential  mundane  immortality; 
but  no  one  had  suspected  that  highly  organized  and  dif- 
287 


SENESCENCE 

ferentiated  somatic  cells,  which  had  lost  the  power  of 
producing  the  whole  individual  and  could  only  produce 
cells  of  their  own  special  tissue,  had  this  power.  Recent 
experiments,  however,  indicate  that  under  certain  highly 
elaborated  conditions  they,  too,  can  be  made  to  live  and 
even  grow  indefinitely  and  that  this  growth  can  not 
only  be  observed  but  measured  under  the  microscope. 
Many  attempts  had  been  made  by  many  individuals  to 
grow  tissues  artificially  to  see  their  development,  their 
functions,  and  decay,  in  both  health  and  disease.  This 
can  now  be  done  by  taking  pieces  of  living  tissue  from 
the  body,  for  science  has  never  produced  a  single  living 
cell,  and  placing  it  in  artificial  media  made  out  of  blood 
plasma  especially  prepared,  for  nutrition  for  such  a 
bit  of  tissue  deprived  of  access  to  the  normal  circulation 
of  the  blood  is  the  prime  condition  for  such  growth.11 
Indeed,  until  Carrel,  who  had  long  been  interested  in  the 
regenerative  processes  of  scars,  succeeded  in  actually 
causing  cells  of  the  connective  tissue  to  grow  after  being 
deprived  of  the  circulation  of  the  blood,  this  was  sup- 
posed to  be  impossible.  Leo  Loeb  had  already  pro- 
duced artificial  growth  within  and  without  the  body  as 
early  as  1907,  and  in  such  processes  that  utilized  the 
body  fluid  it  was  found  that  the  same  course  was  fol- 
lowed as  in  nature,  so  that  the  processes  in  such  culture 
media  approximated  those  that  followed  grafting.  In 
1907  Harrison  gave  details  of  such  a  process  that 

"Genevieve  Grandcourt,  "The  Immortality  of  Tissues:  Its  Bearing  on 
the  Study  of  Old  Age,"  Sci.  Am.,  Oct.  20,  1912.  Also  "What  is  Old  Age? : 
Carrel's  Research  on  the  Mechanism  of  Physical  Growth,"  Sci.  Am., 
Nov.  23,  1918. 

C.  Pozzi,  "Vie  Manifestie  Permanente  de  La  Tissue,"  La  Preusse 
Midicale,  p.  532. 

Alexis  Carrel,  "Present  Condition  of  a  Strain  of  Connective  Tissue 
Twenty-eight  Months  Old,"  Jour.  Exper.  Med.,  July  i,  1914,  and  "Con- 
tributions to  the  Study  of  the  Mechanism  of  the  Growth  of  Connective 
Tissue,"  Jour.  Exper.  Med.,  Sept.,  1913.  See  also  Science,  vol.  36,  1912, 
p.  789- 

288 


BIOLOGY  AND  PHYSIOLOGY 

seemed  convincing,  although  he  worked  only  on  cold- 
blooded animals,  cultivating  nerve  fibers  from  the  cen- 
tral system  of  the  frog.  Carrel  extended  this  method  to 
warm-blooded  creatures  and  mammals,  studying  espe- 
cially the  laws  of  regeneration  of  tissues  after  surgical 
wounds. 

The  method  of  these  remarkable  achievements,  now 
often  repeated,  is  to  put  tiny  bits  of  living  tissue  in  a 
plasma  of  blood  serum  that  will  coagulate.  The  blood 
must  be  deprived  of  its  cells  by  the  centrifugal  process 
and  must  generally  be  taken  from  the  animal  for  which 
the  tissue  is  to  be  cultivated  or,  at  any  rate,  generally 
from  the  same  species,  although  this  is  not  without 
exceptions,  for  chicken  tissue  has  been  grown  in  the 
blood  of  human  beings,  dogs,  and  rabbits ;  morbid  tissue, 
perhaps,  like  cancer,  being  most  indifferent.  The  tissue 
is  taken  from  an  etherized  subject,  with  every  possible 
precaution  against  bacteria,  chilling,  or  drying,  and  so 
liable  is  it  to  be  killed  by  exposure  to  air  that  it  is  best 
dissected  in  serum.  Both  plasma  and  tissue  are  kept  in 
cold  storage  and  the  time  during  which  it  can  be  thus 
kept  varies  very  greatly  with  different  animals.  The 
bit  of  tissue  must  be  very  small  because  only  the  outer 
edge  can  get  the  nourishment  when  deprived  of  the 
normal  blood  circulation,  for  when  the  piece  of  tissue  is 
large,  all  but  the  periphery  dies.  To  see  these  changes 
of  form,  small  bits  of  tissue  are  grown  on  the  inside  of 
a  coverglass  of  a  microscope  slide  that  has  been  overlain 
with  a  prepared  plasma,  sealed  with  paraffin  and  put 
into  an  electric  incubator  provided  with  a  microscope. 
The  period  before  growth  begins  varies  but  when  it 
occurs,  the  microscope  shows  the  direct  division  of  the 
nuclei  and  the  growth  taking  the  form  either  of  layers 
or  of  radiating  chains,  depending  on  whether  epithelial 
or  connective  tissue  is  being  developed.  Each  tissue, 
whether  normal  or  morbid,  develops  very  precisely  tis- 
289 


SENESCENCE 

sue  of  its  own  kind,  and  sometimes  as,  for  example,  with 
cancerous  tissue,  the  growth  is  so  rapid  that  it  can  be 
observed  with  the  naked  eye.  This,  of  course,  opens  an 
immense  field  of  observation  and  experiment,  for  ex- 
ample, immunity,  protection  against  antibodies,  redin- 
tegration, regulation  of  growth  of  the  whole  or  parts, 
and  perhaps  especially  rejuvenation  and  senility,  to  say 
nothing  of  the  character  and  the  influence  of  the  secre- 
tions from  all  the  glands.  The  trouble  at  first  was  that 
the  artificial  growth  was  so  short-lived;  but  by  changing 
the  medium  often  and  by  frequent  washing  away  of  the 
waste  products  in  a  salt  solution,  it  was  found  that  the 
life  and  growth  of  these  isolated  bits  of  tissue  could  be 
very  greatly  prolonged.  It  seemed  that  the  process  of 
decay  was  due  to  the  inability  of  tissues  to  eliminate 
waste  products.  So  in  1912  Carrel's  problem  was 
whether  these  effects  could  be  overcome. 

To  solve  this  problem  bits  of  the  heart  and  blood 
vessels  of  a  chick  embryo  were  grown.  These  growths 
were  immersed  in  salt  solution  for  a  few  minutes  and 
then  placed  in  the  new  plasma  and  it  was  soon  found  that 
thus  the  tissue  could  be  made  to  live  on  indefinitely. 
Growth  is  more  rapid  the  earlier  the  stage  of  it  and  it 
soon  declines ;  hence  the  advantage  of  using  tissue  from 
embryos.  But  by  subjecting  these  artificial  growths 
to  washings  it  was  found  that  they  were  many  times 
greater  at  the  end  than  at  the  commencement  of  the 
month,  showing  that  they  do  not  grow  old  at  all.  Thus 
C.  Pozzi  says : 

The  pulsations  of  a  bit  of  heart  which  had  diminished  in  num- 
ber and  intensity  or  ceased  could  be  revived  to  a  normal  state  by 
washing  and  passage  through  a  new  solution.  In  a  secondary 
culture  two  fragments  of  heart,  separated  by  a  free  space,  beat 
strongly  and  regularly,  the  larger  fragment  92,  the  smaller  120 
times  a  minute.  For  three  days  the  number  and  intensity  of 
pulsations  of  the  two  parts  varied  slightly.  On  the  fourth  they 

290 


BIOLOGY  AND  PHYSIOLOGY 

diminished  considerably  in  intensity,  the  large  fragment  beating 
40,  the  smaller  90  times.  When  the  culture  was  washed  and 
placed  in  a  new  medium,  the  pulsations  again  became  strong,  the 
larger  one  20,  the  smaller  one  60  times  a  minute.  At  the  same 
time,  the  fragments  grew  rapidly,  and  in  eight  hours  they  were 
united  and  formed  a  mass  of  which  all  the  parts  beat  synchro- 
nously. 

Pozzi  again  says : 

On  January  17  the  fragment  of  a  chicken  heart  embryo  was 
placed  in  plasma.  It  grew  readily  on  a  thick  crown  of  con- 
junctive cells.  In  three  days  the  pulsations,  which  were  regular 
and  strong  at  the  beginning,  grew  feeble  and  ceased  completely, 
and  this  state  continued  for  more  than  a  month.  On  the  2Qth 
of  February,  the  culture,  which  had  been  subjected  to  four- 
teen passages,  was  dissected  and  the  central  film  placed  in  a  new 
medium.  After  the  fifteenth  passage  it  contracted  rhythmically, 
with  pulsations  as  strong  and  frequent  as  on  January  17,  viz., 
from  1 20  to  130  per  minute.  During  March  and  April  this  frag- 
ment of  a  heart  continued  to  beat  from  60  to  120  times  per 
minute.  As  the  growth  of  the  conjunctive  tissue  became  more 
active,  it  was  necessary,  before  each  passage,  to  extirpate  the  new 
connective  tissue  formed  around  the  muscle.  On  April  17  the 
fragment  beat  92  times,  agitating  all  the  mass  of  the  tissue  and 
the  neighboring  parts  of  the  middle  of  the  culture.  On  May  I 
the  pulsations  were  feeble  and  they  were  given  their  thirty-fifth 
passage.  In  the  manipulation  the  muscular  tissue  was  stretched 
and  torn  so  that  the  contractions  ceased. 

Thus  experiment  seems  to  establish  the  fact  that  even 
connective  tissue,  composed  of  not  the  most  highly  de- 
veloped but  of  vigorous  though  low-level  cells,  is 
immortal.  Senility  and  death  result  because  in  normal 
conditions  the  blood  does  not  succeed  in  removing  waste 
products.  Could  science  only  wash  them  away  in  a  liv- 
ing organism,  life  might  be  indefinitely  prolonged.  It  is 
these  connective  tissues  that  give  support  to  the  textures 
that  compose  the  body  and  that  chiefly  make  up  bone, 
cartilage,  ligaments,  and  the  lymph  network,  the  cells  of 
291 


SENESCENCE 

which  are  endowed  with  special  properties  of  growth 
and  play  a  great  role  in  rejuvenating  injured  tissue.  All 
this  work,  in  a  sense,  started  from  Claude  Bernard's 
principle  that  the  life  of  an  organism  is  dependent  on 
the  interaction  of  its  cells  and  the  medium  in  which  they 
grow.  Thus,  to  understand  the  process  by  which  the 
body  develops  and  why  it  must  yield  to  decay  and  death, 
we  must  inquire  into  the  cause  of  the  loss  of  character 
of  these  interactions ;  and  this  was  impossible  until  tissue 
could  be  grown  outside  the  body  so  that  the  processes 
might  thus  be  brought  within  the  range  of  the  micro- 
scope and  all  its  conditions  under  control.  Carrel's  first 
effort,  thus,  was  directed  toward  the  way  in  which  the 
medium  affected  the  life  of  the  cell  and  in  constituting 
this  medium  of  plasma  from  the  blood  of  dogs  and 
chickens  he  found  that  the  older  the  animal  from  which 
the  blood  was  taken,  the  less  rapidly  and  extensively  the 
tissues  grew  in  it.  In  the  blood  of  a  relatively  old  animal 
the  increase  became  so  slight  as  to  be  practically  nil. 
These  comparative  experiments  were  made,  Grandcourt 
tells  us,  with  the  blood  of  animals  from  five  months  to 
five  years  of  age,  and  there  was  enormously  greater 
activity  on  the  part  of  the  blood  of  growing  animals. 
Thus  it  would  seem  that  when  an  animal  attains  its  size 
and  stops  growing,  its  blood  undergoes  progressive 
changes  till  it  lacks,  more  and  more,  the  dynamic  power 
of  youth.  So  the  problem  was  whether  the  plasma  could 
be  given  the  force  of  youth  so  far  as  its  action  on  grow- 
ing cells  was  concerned  and  this  was  accomplished  by 
mixing  it  with  juices  extracted  from  the  embryo.  Ex- 
periments, too,  were  made  with  a  strain  of  connective 
tissue  cells  that  had  been  kept  in  artificial  life  for  more 
than  sixteen  months.  It  was  divided  into  two  parts, 
one  of  which  was  grown  on  adult  plasma  and  the 
other  in  a  mixture  of  two  parts,  one  of  plasma 
and  the  other  of  embryonic  juice.  In  two  days 

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BIOLOGY  AND  PHYSIOLOGY 

the  ring  of  tissue  around  the  second  part  was  three 
times  as  great  as  that  around  the  first.  Some  of  these 
tissues,  passed  through  a  salt  solution  130  times,  doubled 
their  area  in  forty-eight  hours.  Another,  washed  57 
times,  increased  in  volume  fifteen  times  in  ten  days,  etc. 
These  rapid  growths,  however,  could  not  be  duplicated 
in  normal  plasma  which  was  then  further  modified. 
Thus  the  different  media  have  a  pretty  constant  effect 
upon  the  rate  of  growth.  Carrel  says:  "The  special 
rapidity  of  the  growth  of  the  tissue  depends  so  much  on 
the  composition  of  the  medium  that  it  may  become  pos- 
sible to  use  as  a  reagent  of  the  dynamic  value  of  the 
humors  of  the  organism  a  strain  of  cells  adjusted  to  life 
in  utero."  If  human  connective  tissue  could  be  pre- 
served in  the  condition  of  permanent  life  as  the  con- 
nective tissue  cells  of  a  chicken  are  preserved,  the  value 
of  the  plasma  of  an  individual  might  be  approximated  by 
the  cultivation  in  it  of  a  group  of  these  cells  and  by  the 
observation  of  the  rate  of  their  multiplication.  Such 
observations  do  suggest  some  indication  of  certain 
values  of  the  blood  of  an  organism  and  may  give  us 
some  clue  to  old  age. 

Thus  in  the  course  of  development  the  activity  of  the 
tissue  is  apt  to  vary  in  the  body  as  a  whole  and  in  its 
parts.  It  therefore  became  a  question  whether  each  par- 
ticular condition  was  permanent  or  whether  the  dy- 
namics of  the  cell  changes  through  the  action  of  the 
medium  upon  it.  To  determine  this,  several  bits  of  tis- 
sue, each  having  its  own  dynamic  power,  were  cultivated 
in  media  exactly  alike  and  differences  in  the  character 
of  the  growth  were  noted.  Then  the  influence  of  the 
medium  began  to  tell.  Measurements  of  the  changes 
undergone  on  the  part,  in  turn  of  a  fast-  and  slow- 
growing  tissue,  showed  that  the  former  had  lowered  its 
activity  one-half  in  forty-eight  hours,  while  the  latter 
had  multiplied  its  activity  by  six.  This  process  con- 

293 


SENESCENCE 

tinued  until  the  level  of  uniformity  was  reached,  when 
the  conditions  of  growth  remained  equal  in  all  cases. 
Thus  it  appears  that  though,  in  the  beginning,  certain 
substances  that  the  tissues  had  accumulated  had  the 
effect  of  accelerating  or  retarding  its  activity  in  the 
medium,  yet  in  time  the  latter  overcame  these  conditions 
and  growth  was  brought  under  the  laws  of  its  own 
special  mechanism.  Thus  the  sum  of  the  investigations 
on  the  influence  of  the  medium  on  cells  is  that  it  may 
not  only  change  the  dynamic  possibilities  of  the  tissue 
but  the  character  of  the  change  may  be  regulated  by 
a  carefully  considered  modification  of  the  medium 
(Grandcourt). 

All  this  work  involves  the  theory  that  the  cells  make 
such  demands  upon  the  nutrition  supplied  by  the  medium 
that  they  deplete  it  and  then  become  indirect  means  of 
introducing  into  the  life  process  a  chemically  destructive 
activity  (catabolism).  The  result  is  a  gradual  slowing 
down  of  cell  growth,  which  is  progressive  aging  and 
death.  A  very  analogous  course  was  that  followed  in 
the  earlier  artificial  cultivations.  The  tissues  lived  a 
short  span  of  days  and  then  died.  But  the  process  of 
degeneration  could  be  obviated  by  salt  solutions  and 
other  processes  so  that  tissues  now  grow  in  vitro  for  a 
year  and  a  half  and  may  continue  to  multiply  faster  than 
those  of  the  embryo.  Thus  for  such  tissues  senility  does 
not  exist  and  the  question  naturally  arises  whether  we 
can  ever  hope  to  accomplish  anything  of  this  sort  inside 
the  body. 

Carrel  in  1914  reported  a  strain  of  connective  tissue 
that  had  undergone  358  passages  and  had  then  reached 
the  twenty-eighth  month  of  its  life  in  vitro.  It  was 
detached  from  the  heart  of  a  chick  embryo  seven  days  of 
age,  which  pulsated  for  104  days  and  gave  rise  to  a  large 
number  of  connective  tissue  cells.  These  multiplied 
actively  for  the  first  two  years,  a  great  many  cultures 

294 


BIOLOGY  AND  PHYSIOLOGY 

having  been  derived  from  this  strain  every  week.  The 
fragment  of  the  tissue  usually  doubled  in  forty-eight 
hours,  though  rapidity  of  growth  was  subject  to  fluctua- 
tions. One  striking  result  is  seen  by  comparing  the 
amount  of  tissue  produced  by  a  given  culture  in  forty- 
eight  hours  this  year  with  that  produced  in  the  same 
tissue  by  the  same  strain  of  cells  a  year  before.  This 
shows  that  the  activity  of  the  strain  had  increased, 
although  this  might,  of  course,  be  due  to  improvement 
of  technic  or  possibly  to  a  progressive  adaptation  to 
life  in  vitro.  Carrel  says:  "Thus  it  is  conclusively 
shown  that  the  proliferating  power  of  the  strain  has  in 
no  wise  diminished.  During  the  third  year  of  independ- 
ent life,  the  connective  tissue  shows  greater  activity  than 
at  the  beginning  of  the  period  and  is  no  longer  subject 
to  the  influence  of  time.  If  we  exclude  accident,  the 
connective  tissue  cells,  like  infusoria,  may  proliferate 
indefinitely."  In  the  latest  report  at  hand  one  of  these 
cultures  had  been  kept  alive  and  growing  thus  for  seven 
and  a  half  years. 

The  original  and  indefatigable  American-Frenchman, 
C.  E.  Brown-Sequard  (1817-1894)  who  in  1878  suc- 
ceeded Claude  Bernard  in  the  chair  of  experimental 
medicine  in  the  College  de  France,  was  one  of  the  first 
experimental  physiologists  to  study  the  functions  of 
glands  and  to  realize  the  importance  of  their  secretions. 
After  investigating  the  suprarenals  in  animals  as  early 
as  1869  and  finding  that  their  removal  always  caused 
death,  he  returned  to  this  subject  twenty  years  later  to 
investigate  the  testicular  fluids  which,  discharged  into 
the  blood,  "exalted  the  power  of  the  nervous  system  and 
kept  up  the  vital  energies."  He  even  injected  the  fluids 
extracted  from  the  testes  of  animals  into  his  own  system 
hypodermically,  with  results  that  he  thought  distinctly 
beneficial  to  himself  and  says  that  he  "at  the  age  of 
295 


SENESCENCE 

seventy  recovered  the  force  and  energy  of  youth,  with 
manifestations  unknown  for  a  number  of  years."  He 
thus  believed  that  he  had  discovered  a  new  therapeutic 
agent  of  great  rejuvenating  power.  Berthelot  says, 
"The  subject  required  delicate  manipulation,  not  only 
because  of  the  extraordinary  precautions  required  for 
this  kind  of  investigation  but  of  charlatanism,  always 
ready  to  possess  itself  of  new  curative  procedures.  He 
did  not  protest  against  the  abuses  by  which  his  name  was 
used  to  cover  industrial  enterprises."  He  persisted  in 
his  idea,  and  he,  more  than  anyone  else,  should  be  called 
the  founder  of  opotherapy  or  treatment  by  extracts 
from  organs.  His  name  will  always  have  a  prominent 
place  in  the  history  of  endocrinology  or  the  science  that 
deals  with  the  glands  that  secrete  inwardly,  a  subject 
that  already  has  a  vast  and  rapidly  growing  literature, 
with  an  essentially  new  body  of  facts  and  insights  and, 
at  its  present  stage  of  development,  yet  far  more  pre- 
cious hopes  and  expectations  of  great  discoveries  just 
ahead. 

Some  of  the  many  commercial  products  of  testicular 
juices,  so  very  difficult  to  prepare  in  a  form  that  can  be 
preserved,  were  for  many  years  widely  used  and  the 
best  known  of  these,  Pohl's  spermine  preparations,  are 
still  more  or  less  in  demand.  But  despite  Brown- 
Sequard's  enthusiastic  belief  in  his  age-deferring  cure, 
it  lapsed  from  general  attention,  partly  because  the 
initial  expectations  were  too  high,  until  a  very  few  years 
ago  when  the  problems  it  had  suggested  were  ap- 
proached in  a  new  way  by  a  few  investigators  whose 
results  have  not  only  a  high  value  in  themselves  but  give 
promise  of  yet  more  important  and  definite  subsequent 
discoveries — and  that  despite  the  conservatism  and 
criticism  that  all  efforts  to  deal  scientifically  and  funda- 
mentally with  human  sex  problems  always  encounter. 

296 


BIOLOGY  AND  PHYSIOLOGY 

Professor  Eugene  Steinach,  who  founded  a  labora- 
tory of  comparative  physiology  at  Prague  and  was  later 
made  director  of  the  biological  institute  at  Vienna,  con- 
tinued to  work  there  until  his  institute,  for  which  Roux 
and  others  have  solicited  contributions  from  men  of 
science,  to  have  it  opened  again,  was  closed  by  the  war. 
He  began  to  publish  his  epoch-making  results  in  1910. 
In  spring  frogs  brought  to  his  laboratory  he  found  8  per 
cent  impotent  and  also  that  testicular  injection  from 
normal  frogs  seemed  to  restore  or  intensify  the  em- 
bracement  impulse  and  the  strength  of  the  forelegs.17 
The  effect  lasted,  however,  only  a  few  days.  Neverthe- 
less he  suggests  that  in  borderline  cases  it  might  per- 
manently restore  fertility.  The  same  process  in  cas- 
trated frogs  showed  the  same  effect,  only  in  much  less 
degree,  and  the  injection  of  substance  from  the  cerebro- 
spinal  centers  of  these  activities  seemed  to  have  a  cer- 
tain but  very  slight  effect  upon  the  sex  nature. 

When  ovaries  and  testes  were  transferred  in  guinea 
pigs  a  few  days  old,  he  found,  in  general,  that  through 
the  influences  of  the  hormones  from  these  glands  the 
character  of  each  sex  underwent  "slow  but  radical  trans- 
formation over  toward  the  other."  18  In  the  one  case 
the  male  organ  atrophied  and  the  breasts  were  devel- 
oped, with  a  disposition  to  nurse,  the  hair  became  finer, 
the  method  of  growth  was  transformed  into  that  of  the 
other  sex;  and  the  converse  occurred  when  the  trans- 
plantation was  in  the  reverse  direction.  The  change  was 
thus  both  morphological  and  functional  and  Steinach 
believes  that  there  is  a  distinct  antagonism  of  the  sex 
hormones  due  to  transplantation  of  a  heterological  gland 
and  that  this  is  not  due  to  biochemical  differences  of 

17  Geschlechtstrieb  und  echt  sekundare  Geschlechtsmerkmale  als   Folgc 
der  Innersekretorischen  Funktion  der  Keimdrusen,"  Zeit.  f.  Physiologic, 
Sept.,  1910. 

18  "Pubertatsdriisen   und   Zwitterbildung,"   Archiv,   f.   Entwicklung  der 
Organismen,  vol.  42,  1916,  pp.  307-332. 

297 


SENESCENCE 

blood  but  to  a  distinct  antagonism  between  male  and 
female  hormones,  which  have  a  sex  specificity  that  is  the 
main  factor  in  directing  growth.  He  distinguishes  be- 
tween the  specific  sex  influence  and  the  antagonism  that 
brings  about  heterological  sex  signs,  which  favor  the 
development  of  other  pubertal  glands  and  control 
growth,  even  to  the  dimensions  of  the  skeleton,  both 
stimulating  and  inhibiting  it.  The  transplantation  can 
be  so  effected  that  the  glands  of  both  sexes,  in  a  sense, 
inhibit  each  other,  so  that  something  like  experimental 
hermaphroditism  can  be  caused.  These  changes  last 
sometimes  through  life  and  occasionally  there  may  be 
periodic  milk  secretions  in  males.  Each  element  checks 
and  may  throw  the  other  out  of  function. 

In  a  later  article  19  Steinach  published  results  of  ex- 
periments upon  the  exchange  of  sex  glands  in  other  ani- 
mals between  the  different  sexes  and  found  that  the 
female  masculated  by  being  given  the  testes  of  her 
brother  followed  more  or  less  his  development  rather 
than  her  own,  almost  equaling  him  in  growth,  weight, 
and  robustness.  This  Steinach  calls  hyper-masculiniza- 
tion  and  a  degree  of  this  follows  the  development  of  the 
glands  after  transplantation,  which  the  microscope 
showed  was  attended  by  real  intussusception.  He  also 
showed  hyper-f eminization,  so  that  we  have  a  change  of 
the  ovaries  into  hypertrophic  but  analogous  pubertal 
glands,  with  corresponding  change  of  traits,  dependent 
upon  the  degree  of  success  or  completeness  of  the  opera- 
tion. Thus  he  thinks,  too,  we  can  explain  somatic  and 
psychic  precocity  by  the  hypertrophy  of  these  glands. 
In  another  article20  the  author  emphasizes  the  great 
variability  in  the  development  of  sex,  both  as  to  size  of 

"  "Erhohte  Wirkungen  der  inneren  Sekretion  bei  Hypertrophie  der 
Pubertatsdriisen,"  Archiv.  f.  Entwicklungsmechanik  der  Organismen,  vol. 
42,  1916,  pp.  490-507- 

""Klima  und  Mannbarkeit,"  Archiv.  f.  Entwicklungsmechanik  der 
Organismen,  vol.  46,  1920,  p.  391. 


BIOLOGY  AND  PHYSIOLOGY 

organs  and  their  functions  in  different  individuals  and 
believes  that  besides  environment,  heredity,  race,  etc., 
climate  has  a  great  deal  to  do  with  it.  He  finds  that  in 
warm  countries  the  advent  of  sex  maturity  is  somewhat 
earlier  in  all  its  aspects,  although  there  is  some  sugges- 
tion that  these  accelerations  may  be  connected  with  the 
development  of  other  secondary  traits.  Experiments 
made  with  animals  in  artificial  climates  point  to  the 
same  result  and  changes  in  this  direction  are  observed  in 
animals  accustomed  to  cold  that  are  transported  to 
warm  climates. 

Interesting  as  these  experiments  on  the  interchange 
of  primary  and  secondary  sexual  qualities  are,  they 
were,  for  Steinach,  only  preliminary  to  what  chiefly  con- 
cerns us  here,  namely,  his  studies  of  rejuvenation  21  and 
his  problem  was  to  see  whether  by  his  operations  he 
could  shed  light  upon  the  problem  of  whether  age  is  a 
condition  we  are  defenseless  against,  like  an  incurable 
disease,  or  senescence  can,  at  least  within  certain  modest 
limits,  be  influenced.  He  says  his  experiments  have 
decided  in  favor  of  the  latter  alternative.  He  had  first 
to  determine  whether  orthoplastic,  homoplastic,  or  a 
combination  of  both  methods  was  the  best.  The  former 
was  chosen  because  it  was  quickest  and  easiest  and 
independent  of  earlier  implantation  material,  especially 
with  men.  And  so,  with  his  colleague,  Lichtenstern, 
various  operations  were  performed,  of  which  three  type 
cases  are  as  follows : 

Case  i.  Man  of  44,  lean,  weak,  wrinkled,  incapable  of  physical 
work  by  reason  of  easy  fatigue.  Libido  failing  for  years  and 
almost  extinct,'  testicular  pains,  and  double-sided  hydrocele. 
With  local  anesthesia  the  typical  Winkelmann  operation  was  per- 
formed. On  both  sides  there  was  ligature  of  the  vas  deferens 

a"Verjungung  dutch  Experimentelle  Neubelebung  der  alternden  Puber- 
tats  Druse,"  Archiv.  f.  Entwicklungsmechanik  der  Organismen,  vol.  46, 
1920,  Part  4. 

299 


SENESCENCE 

between  the  testicle  and  the  epididymis.  The  cure  took  a  week 
and  the  patient  was  soon  discharged.  A  few  weeks  witnessed  a 
striking  change.  He  increased  in  weight,  the  wrinkles  almost 
vanished,  and  in  five  months  he  had  won  back  muscular  power 
and  become  a  hard  worker,  carrying  heavy  burdens.  "Libido 
and  potence  returned  with  great  intensity."  The  upper  part  of 
the  thigh  grew  hairy  and  both  hair  and  beard  increased  so  that 
he  had  to  shave  more  often.  Improvement  continued  during  the 
year  and  a  half  in  which  he  was  under  observation  and  he  seemed 
in  every  way  a  vigorous  and  young  man. 

Case  2.  Man  of  71,  of  large  business,  who  came  to  the  hospital 
with  an  abscess  in  the  left  testicle  with  septic  signs — chills,  high 
temperature,  etc. — so  that  it  was  necessary  to  remove  the  source 
of  maturation  in  toto.  At  the  same  time  the  right,  sound  testicle 
was  subjected  to  ligature  of  the  passage  from  the  epididymis  to 
the  vas  deferens.  In  twenty-four  hours  the  patient  lost  his  fever 
and  in  three  weeks  left  the  hospital.  Quite  apart  from  the  acute 
symptoms,  this  patient  had  for  years  suffered  marked  signs  of 
age,  especially  calcification  phenomena — dizziness,  shortness  of 
breath,  weakness  of  heart,  great  fatigue,  tremors,  etc.,  with  libido 
extinct  for  eight  years.  Within  a  few  months  a  marked  change 
occurred.  A  feeling  of  masculinity  returned  and  in  nine  months 
the  patient  described  his  own  condition  in  a  letter  in  which  he  says 
in  substance  that,  to  his  great  surprise,  certain  nocturnal 
phenomena  had  recurred,  his  appetite  was  so  great  that  for  a 
long  time  it  was  difficult  for  him  to  satisfy  it,  instead  of  previous 
depression  he  found  himself  again  full  of  the  joy  of  life  and 
considered  himself  very  elastic  for  his  age,  while  his  friends  often 
remarked  the  great  change  that  had  taken  place  and  could  not 
believe  he  was  seventy-one.  He  suffers  little  from  fatigue,  calci- 
fication and  dizziness  have  ceased,  he  can  think  clearly,  had  to  go 
to  the  barber  more  often,  and  all  his  functions  have  greatly 
improved. 

Case  3.  This  was  a  wholesale  merchant  of  66  who  for  some 
five  years  had  shown  senile  symptoms,  such  as  difficulty  of 
respiration  and  in  thinking,  weak  memory  and  also  muscles,  and 
libido  almost  gone.  In  this  case  there  was  rapid  prostatism  and 
catheterization,  also  emaciation,  and  occasionally  more  pro- 
nounced psychic  disturbances.  The  first  operation  on  this  case 
was  prostatomy  but  this  did  not  arrest  loss  of  weight  or  increas- 
ing weakness.  Then  there  was  ligature  of  the  vas  near  its 
entrance  into  the  epididymis  on  both  sides,  which  was  followed  by 
a  very  rapid  recovery,  with  improvement  of  nearly  all  symptoms. 

300 


BIOLOGY  AND  PHYSIOLOGY 

Thus  the  author  thinks  that  in  fighting  old  age  ortho- 
plasty  is  by  far  the  best  method,  and  to  the  objection 
that  these  cases  are  not  true  psychic  senescence  but 
only  symptoms  of  intercurrent  disease  he  replies  that 
this  only  gave  occasion  for  the  operation  and  that  the 
disease  itself  was  the  result  of  age.  Thus,  in  general,  he 
concludes  that  for  advanced  senescence  the  ligature  of 
the  vas,  as  above,  gives  the  most  remarkable  results,  and 
that  for  those  before  the  senium  also  it  may  often  work 
very  favorably.  The  same  is  true  of  premature  old  age, 
the  advent  of  which  has  immense  individual  variations. 

As  to  checking  the  advance  of  old  age  in  women, 
Steinach  is  not  yet  ready  to  make  any  positive  report,  but 
in  view  of  what  has  already  been  done  with  animals  he 
thinks  a  good  prognosis  can  be  made  and  that  the  best 
method  is  by  implantation  of  young  ovarian  material. 
The  difficulty  of  this  orthoplastic  process  is  found  only 
in  the  dependence  upon  the  material  of  implantation, 
which  is  very  difficult  to  secure.  The  effort  is  directed 
in  all  such  cases  to  the  influence  of  the  aging  ovaries, 
whether  operative  by  orthoplastic  transplantation  or  by 
the  use  of  Roentgen  rays.  The  former,  on  account  of 
the  earlier  involution  of  ovaries,  is  confined  within  cer- 
tain limits  to  women.  The  phenomena  of  fatigue,  etc., 
have  been  removed  by  this  method,  which  has  been  so 
successful  that  improvement  has  been  noticed  by 
friends. 

In  Steinach's  experiments  with  rats,  which  pass 
through  the  life  stages  so  rapidly,  he  used  the  method  of 
transplantation  of  testicular  glands  furnished  by  three- 
months-old  individuals  and  this  grafting  need  not  neces- 
sarily be  in  situ  but  in  various  parts  of  the  body.  If 
intussusception  took  place,  as  it  generally  did  if  the 
operation  was  well  performed,  the  change  here  was  gen- 
erally marked  within  two  weeks,  as  his  photographs 
show.  More  or  less  of  Steinach's  work  has  been  con- 
301 


SENESCENCE 

firmed,  Ebstein  tells  us,  by  other  observers  who  have 
shown  that  not  only  in  rats  but  in  guinea  pigs  the  transfer 
of  ovaries  and  testes  between  the  sexes  makes  the  male, 
to  some  extent,  become  female,  and  vice  versa.  Sex  dif- 
ferences, Steinach  thinks,  do  not  result  from  anatomical 
differences  in  the  organs  transferred  but  are  due  to 
functions  residing  in  certain  cells,  especially  those  of 
Leydig  or  Lutein.  It  is  their  secretions  that  determine 
sex  characteristics.  Indeed,  they  are  really  glands  and 
vitality  and  vigor  depend  upon  their  state.  Youth  is  the 
freshening  up  of  these  glands.  No  one  has  recognized 
more  clearly  than  Steinach  that  there  is  a  false  old  age 
that  has  been,  in  a  sense,  imposed  by  civilization  upon 
elderly  people  and  given  them  a  role  they  have  more  or 
less  passively  accepted,  just  as  in  the  same  way  there  are 
spurious  forms  of  other  diseases.  Some  of  Steinach's 
critics  have  suggested  that  all  he  has  done  is  to  throw 
off  these  artificial  inhibitions  and  give  old  age  the  true 
character  nature  intended  it  to  have.  But  even  if  this 
criticism  has  any  weight  against  his  conclusions  respect- 
ing old  age  in  man,  it  certainly  cannot  apply  to  his 
studies  of  senescent  animals,  for  in  them  the  traits  of 
old  age  were  unmistakable,  as  not  only  photographs  but, 
far  more,  activities  showed.  They  certainly  do  seem  to 
be  really  rejuvenated  and  not  merely  to  be  laying  aside  a 
sham  old  age. 

Of  the  half-dozen  or  more  expert  opinions  upon 
Steinach's  work  nearly  all  have  been  by  his  own  country- 
men and  by  far  the  most  exhaustive  and,  on  the  whole, 
highly  favorable  is  that  of  Paul  Kammerer.22  For  a 
very  condensed  account  of  it  in  English  see  A.  Granet's 
resume 23  in  which  he  says  ( i )  that  Steinach's  work  is 

*  "Steinach's  Forschungen  fiber  Entwicklung,  Beherrschung,  und  Wand- 
lung  der  Pubertat,"  Ergebnisse  der  Inneren  Medizin  und  Kinderheilkunde, 

1919,  vol.  17,  pp.  295-398. 

""Eugene  Steinach's  Work  on  Rejuvenation,"  N.  Y.  Med.  J.,  vol.  112, 

1920,  p.  612. 

302 


BIOLOGY  AND  PHYSIOLOGY 

based  on  a  new  conception  of  the  puberty  gland  as  the 
internal  secretory  portion  of  the  gonads.  This  consists 
of  the  interstitial  cells  in  the  male  and  of  the  lutein  cells 
in  the  female.  (2)  Steinach  began  by  studying  animals 
with  a  protracted  rutting  period  in  alternating  stages  of 
development  of  the  interstitial  gland  and  the  generative 
gland  proper.  He  found  a  periodical  hyperdevelopment 
in  the  evolution  of  every  individual,  the  interstitial 
gland  predominating  in  infancy  and  attaining  its  maxi- 
mum development  at  puberty  and  adolescence,  when 
growth  and  vital  energy  are  also  at  their  maximum. 
At  this  time  the  generative  gland  increases  and  both  the 
interstitial  and  generative  portions  continue  to  be  about 
equally  active  till  the  climacteric,  after  which  there  is 
rapid  recession  of  the  interstitial  gland,  and  this  causes 
senility,  which  is  not  due  to  the  ultimate  using  up  of  all 
elements  but  to  the  lack  of  potential  stimulus  due  to  de- 
generation of  the  interstitial  gland.  (3)  Steinach  used 
this  alternating  balance  of  nature  in  the  mixed  gland  by 
artificially  inhibiting  the  generative  portion  and  thereby 
causing  compensatory  regulation  and  revival  of  the  in- 
terstitial portion  with  all  its  rejuvenating  effects  and  the 
recession  of  the  traits  of  senility.  This  he  accomplished 
by  three  methods  (a)  simple  ligation,  under  local  anaes- 
thesia, of  the  vas  deferens.  This  causes  regression  of 
the  generative  gland  and  a  compensatory  regeneration 
of  the  interstitial  portions.  A  one-sided  operation  is 
sufficient  in  all  cases  and  has  the  advantage  of  preserv- 
ing in  addition  the  power  of  procreation.  Of  course 
ligation  of  the  Fallopian  tube  in  the  female  does  not 
produce  this  result,  (b)  Repeated  mild  exposure  of  the 
gonads  to  the  X-ray  is  a  slower  but  apparently  just  as 
effective  a  means  of  obtaining  the  same  result  for  both 
ovaries  and  testes.  And  lastly,  (c)  the  effects  of 
rejuvenation  may  be  experimentally  produced  by  trans- 
plantation in  the  old  of  the  respective  gonads  of  the 

303 


SENESCENCE 

young  animal  of  the  same  species.  For  years  Steinach 
bred  and  reared  healthy  generations  of  laboratory  ani- 
mals and  studied  their  dispositions,  habits,  physical  and 
psychic  traits,  until  he  has  become  unprecedentedly  ex- 
pert in  diagnosing  age,  to  say  nothing  of  sex.  The 
increased  resistance  to  disease  and  the  actual  prolonga- 
tion of  life  of  the  operated  animals  he  estimates  at  about 
25  per  cent  but  after  a  time  senescence  sets  in  again. 

For  women  in  the  climacteric  the  X-ray  method  is,  by 
general  consent,  best.  But  Steinach  contends  that  in- 
creased well-being  and  capacity  thus  caused  are  really  due 
to  regeneration  of  the  interstitial  ovarian  structures.  Gen- 
eral debility  and  climacteric  metrorrhagias  are  distinctly 
helped  by  this  method  because  the  interstitial  portion  of 
the  ovary  is  not  affected  by  the  X-ray  whereas  the  col- 
loidal-albuminoid precipitation  occurs  in  the  cells  of  the 
Graafian  follicles,  which  are  radio-sensitive,  the  same  as 
the  metaplastic  cells.  The  affected  cells  disappear  by 
autolysis.  Menopause  sets  in  and  the  interstitial  por- 
tion alone  whose  hormones  produce  the  rejuvenating 
effect  remains  functioning.  The  effects  of  transplanta- 
tion, too,  are  the  same  and  the  shrinking  of  the  trans- 
planted gland  seems  due  to  atrophy  and  should  not  pre- 
vent rejuvenating  effects. 

E.  Payr 2i  calls  attention  to  the  fact  that  Steinach's 
puberty  glands,  which  correspond  to  the  Leydig  cells, 
are  those  that  secrete  internally  and  that  it  is  these  that 
act  so  powerfully  upon  secondary  sex  qualities  and 
bring  what  often  appears  to  be  a  renewal  of  youth.  His 
operation  is  especially  indicated  in  the  case  of  subjects 
with  healthy  internal  organs  who  are  growing  pre- 
maturely old  and  who  give  evidence  of  loss  of  function 
of  secondary  sexual  characteristics. 

M  "Steinach's  Rejuvenation  Operation,"  Central,  f.  Chirurgie,  Sept  1 1, 
1920. 

304 


BIOLOGY  AND  PHYSIOLOGY 

G.  F.  Lydston  25  describes  nine  cases  of  men  with 
atrophied  testes,  injured,  or  removed,  which  were  re- 
placed in  situ  surgically  by  those  from  the  bodies  of  boys 
recently  dead.  The  glands  from  the  boys  were  removed 
within  a  few  hours  after  death  and  generally  subjected 
to  cold  storage  for  some  hours  and  then  ingrafted  upon 
the  older  patient.  The  boys  from  whom  they  were  taken 
were  healthy  boys  who  had  suffered  sudden  or  violent 
death  and  there  might  be  an  interval  of  many  hours  not 
only  between  the  death  and  the  removal  but  between  the 
latter  and  the  implantation.  In  all  these  cases  Lydston 
reports  more  or  less  improvement  by  the  operation, 
which  in  a  few  cases  was  marked.  The  transplanted 
glands  atrophy  and  disappear  more  rapidly  when  the 
recipient  has  more  or  less  well  developed  testes  of  his 
own.  Apparently  permanent  local  results  were  best  ob- 
tained in  those  cases  in  which  the  patient  had  very  little 
gland  tissue.  Lydston  thinks  that  there  may  be  a  sort 
of  parasitic  action  of  the  patient's  own  glands  upon  the 
transplanted  ones.  His  own  organs  probably  contribute 
the  nutritive  pabulum  otherwise  available  for  the  im- 
planted ones  but  the  therapeutic  results  are  obtained  and 
sustained  even  when  the  implanted  gland  eventually  dis- 
appears. He  thinks  that  the  notable  result  obtained  by 
Dr.  I.  L.  Stanley,  where  the  glands  from  a  Negro  hanged 
for  murder  were  implanted  in  the  scrotum  of  a  white 
moron,  apparently  with  remarkable  results,  suggests 
that  atrophy  may  take  place  more  slowly  when  the  donor 
is  of  the  same  race  as  the  recipient.  The  author  doubts 
whether  there  is  much  advantage  in  anastomosis  as  to 
either  betterment  of  nutrition  or  preservation  of  the 
spermogenetic  function.  He  thinks  "we  run  more  risk 
of  failure  of  the  implant  from  the  greater  traumatiza- 
tion  of  the  tissue  necessary  for  anastomosis."  He 

45  "Further  Observations  on  Sex-Gland  Implantation,"  Jour.  Am.  Med. 
Assn.,  vol.  72,  1919,  p.  396. 

305 


SENESCENCE 

thinks,  too,  that  the  spermogenetic  epithelium  of  the 
testes  degenerates  in  all  cases  rather  promptly.26 

In  his  book,  Impotence,  Sterility  and  Sex  Gland  Im- 
plantation (1917),  which  seems  somewhat  ill-digested, 
Lydston  claims  priority  on  eight  points  and  formulates 
twenty-one  conclusions.  It  seems  to  me  that  he  has  not 
sufficiently  assimilated  the  best  European  work  in  this 
field  or  profited  as  much  as  he  might  have  done  by  the 
far  greater  refinements  of  technique  of  Steinach ;  while 
such  results  as  he  claims  are,  as  he  himself  admits, 
always  wide  open  to  criticism. 

Serge  Voronoff,  like  Metchnikoff,  combines  research 
with  humanism  and  gives  free  rein  to  his  idealism.  He 
is  professor  in  the  medical  school  of  the  College  de 
France  and  deals  with  old  age  and  death  from  the  stand- 
point of  endocrinology  or  the  study  of  the  glands  of 
internal  secretion.  Accepting  Weismann's  doctrine  of 
the  continuity  of  germ  plasm,  he  says  that  the  nameless 
and  ever  unassuaged  horror  that  everybody  really  feels 
for  death  is  "because  an  intimate  memory  of  our  im- 
mortality" survives  or  because  we  recollect  creation's 
first  intention  as  expressed  in  plasmal  immortality.  Man 
has  inherited  this  longing  from  the  deathless  unicellular 
creatures  from  which  he  descended  not  only  in  the  form 
of  quests  for  elixirs  of  life  here  but  in  all  his  manifold 
beliefs  of  a  life  beyond  the  grave,  at  the  same  time  for 

"H.  E.  Goodale  of  the  Massachusetts  Experiment  Station,  Amherst, 
says  (Science,  Oct.  23,  1914,  p.  594.)  :  "A  brown  Leghorn  male  was 
castrated  completely  when  twenty-four  days  of  age,  and  the  ovaries  from 
two  brood  sisters,  cut  in  several  pieces,  were  placed  beneath  the  skin  and 
also  in  the  abdominal  cavity.  At  the  date  of  writing  the  bird  is  as 
obviously  female  as  its  brood  sisters.  Skilled  poultrymen  have  called 
it  a  pullet.  While  it  has  all  the  female  characteristics,  there  can  be  little 
doubt,  from  the  scars  still  visible  as  well  as  other  things,  that  it  was  a 
male."  It  is  not  likely  that  its  peculiar  individuality  was  feminized  owing 
to  constitutional  condition.  The  author  believes  it  was  feminized  by  the 
implanted  ovaries  in  similar  fashion  to  the  rats  and  guinea  pigs  of 
Steinach. 

306 


BIOLOGY  AND  PHYSIOLOGY 

this  life  accepting  the  gospel  of  renunciation  to  death  as 
something  inevitable.  The  ghastly  thought  of  death 
not  only  clouds  all  our  life  but  predisposes  even  most 
scientists  to  think  that  research  in  this  field  cannot  be 
successful. 

The  background  view  of  the  work  in  Voronoff's  field, 
roughly  stated,  is  as  follows.  Somatic  cells,  having  lost 
the  power  to  propagate  the  whole  body,  as  they  develop 
and  multiply  become  more  and  more  special,  not  only  in 
form  but  in  function,  until  they  finally  lose  the  power 
of  multiplication  or  of  regeneration.  These  are  higher 
and  perform  the  most  particularized  functions.  Besides 
these  most  individualized  cells,  so  characteristic  of  every 
organ  that  a  cytologist  can  at  once  distinguish  cells  that 
form  the  epithelium,  intestines,  brain,  muscle,  glands, 
etc.,  there  always  remain  other  far  less  differentiated  or 
more  primitive  cells,  chiefly  leucocytes  or  white  blood 
corpuscles  and  the  connective  tissue  cells.  The  former 
float  in  the  blood  and  can  pass  out  through  the  thin 
walls  of  the  capillaries  into  other  tissues.  The  latter 
constitute  all  the  firmer  supportive  framework  of  every 
organ.  They  are  very  robust,  fecund  proletarians  and  are 
largely  made  up  of  the  former.  From  birth  they  wage 
unceasing  war  upon  the  nobler,  more  professional  and 
expert,  but  less  independent  cells  which  have  sacrificed 
most  of  their  cruder,  pristine  powers  for  service  to  the 
body  corporate.  These  higher  cells  represent  the  ex- 
treme division  of  labor  within  our  bodies.  They  are 
no  longer  sufficient  unto  themselves  but  each  class  of 
them  depends  upon  the  work  of  others.  The  low,  banal, 
barbaric  but  vigorous  cells  of  the  conjunctive  tissue,  on 
the  other  hand,  always  strive  to  destroy  and  to  them- 
selves take  the  place  of  the  higher  cells  and  it  is  this 
process  slowly  going  on  everywhere  that  constitutes  old 
age  and  all  its  processes  of  hardening,  atrophy,  disin- 
tegration, etc.,  for  these  lower  cells  cannot  discharge 

307 


SENESCENCE 

the  functions  of  the  higher  ones  they  have  supplanted 
and  hence  comes  anarchy  within  the  organ  or  body.  We 
die  because  nature  tends  so  strongly  to  develop  the 
cruder  type  of  cell  that  makes  up  the  connective  tissue. 

Now,  secretions  of  the  thyroid  gland  check  this  ag- 
gression of  the  lower  upon  the  higher  cells,  as  is  shown 
in  the  studies  of  cretinism,  which  is  in  so  many  respects 
nothing  but  premature  old  age  brought  on  because  the 
thyroid  fluid,  the  special  function  of  which  was  to  retard 
this  process,  was  not  supplied;  and  when  it  fails,  old 
age  comes  on  precipitately  and  even  children  often  look 
and  act  much  like  prematurely  old  men  and  women.  On 
the  other  hand,  the  Metchnikoff  ferments  of  the  large 
intestine  weaken  the  higher  cells  and  leave  them  with 
less  power  of  resistance,  so  that  they  become  more  easily 
the  prey  of  the  lower  cells  of  the  connective  tissue.  The 
enemy,  however,  for  the  endocrinologist  is  not  primarily 
a  microbe  entering  from  without  but  a  more  formidable 
and  subtle  foe  that  springs  up  within.  The  difficulty 
in  meeting  the  situation  is  immensely  enhanced  by  the 
fact  that  the  cells  of  the  conjunctive  tissue  are  not  only 
useful  but  indispensable  for  the  work  and  the  develop- 
ment of  every  organ  at  first  and  continue  to  be  so  as 
long  as  they  do  not  transcend  this  their  original  function 
and  trespass  outside  it.  The  white  corpuscles,  although 
the  source  of  the  connective  tissue  cells,  are  themselves 
our  chief  defenders.  It  is  they  who  attack  and  devour 
invading  microbes  but  they  consume  not  only  these  but 
also  higher  cells  that  have,  by  the  action  of  microbes 
or  otherwise,  become  debilitated.  They  are,  however, 
on  the  whole,  so  serviceable  that  we  cannot  intervene 
against  them  but  only  against  our  more  dangerous  and 
insidious  enemy,  the  conjunctive  tissue  cells. 

Not  only  the  thyroid  but  yet  more  the  tiny  parathyroid 
glands  secrete  a  fluid,  the  absence  of  which  brings  con- 
vulsions and  death.  A  knowledge  of  the  function  of 

308 


BIOLOGY  AND  PHYSIOLOGY 

these  glands,  no  larger  than  a  pinhead,  as  well  as  that 
of  the  adrenals  or  of  the  far  more  complex  pituitary  body 
(hypophysis),  each  lobe  of  which  plays  its  own  particular 
role,  has  been  nothing  less  than  revolutionary.  The 
effects  due  either  to  excess  or  deficit  of  the  secretion 
of  these  glands,  which  have  been  studied  experimentally 
in  animals  and  observed  in  man,  show  that  they  have 
great  power  even  to  arrest  or  accelerate  growth  itself. 
It  is  they  that  do  much  to  keep  us  young  or  make  us 
old.  In  a  sense  they  furnish  the.  power  that  makes  about 
all  the  organs  do  their  work  efficiently,  as  an  electric 
current  from  a  battery  may  start,  or  its  absence  stop, 
the  most  diverse  kinds  of  electric  machinery.  Thus 
glands  have  come  to  play  a  great  role  in  physiology, 
medicine,  and  even  psychology,  and  their  activities  have 
come  to  be  recognized  in  very  many  phenomena  both 
of  health  and  disease,  which  till  recent  years  no  one  had 
suspected.  Some  of  these  glands  contain  a  relatively 
small  number  of  cells  but  do  a  vast  amount  of  work 
and  manufacture  fluids  that  no  chemist  can  duplicate 
and  that  seem  almost  magic  in  their  effects.  We  owe  to 
them  growth,  health,  and  vitality. 

Most  important  of  all,  and  the  chief  source  of  human 
energy  in  man,  are  the  sex  glands,  which  distribute 
energy  to  all  the  sixty  trillion  cells  of  the  body,  making 
each  carry  out  the  function  assigned  it.  Voronoff  made 
personal  studies  of  eunuchs  in  the  East  and  among  the 
many  traits  so  often  mentioned  he  finds  them  not  only 
arrested  along  various  lines  of  bodily  and  psychic 
growth  but  short-lived  and  perhaps  old  before  they  are 
forty.  They  are  often  selfish  and  crafty.  Sex  glands 
stimulate  not  merely  amorousness  but  all  kinds  of  cere- 
bral and  muscular  energy,  pouring  into  the  blood  a 
species  of  vital  fluid,  and  give  a  sense  of  vigor  and  well- 
being  and  plenitude  of  life,  which  later  vanish  when 
their  source  begins  to  run  dry  in  age.  Can  this  wonder- 

309 


SENESCENCE 

ful  source  of  human  energy  be  placed,  in  any  sense,  in 
man's  control  ?  It  has  already  been  proven  that  tritura- 
tion  of  the  sex  glands  does  not  produce  its  entire  product 
and  particularly  lacks  the  active  element.  Moreover,  all 
preparations  of  this  liquid  change  very  rapidly  and  may 
even  become  toxic.  This  method  has  passed  beyond  the 
stage  of  ingestion  in  the  stomach  or  subcutaneous 
ingestions. 

Voronoff  undertook  to  graft  young  sex  glands  them- 
selves into  bodies  older  than  those  from  which  they 
came  and  if  they  lived  and  throve  in  the  body  of  the 
host,  the  product  they  secreted  would  be  complete  and 
also  vital.  He  says  of  the  testes :  "To  graft  this  gland  is 
to  participate  at  first  hand  in  the  work  of  creation,  to 
imitate  nature  in  the  procedures  which  she  has  elabo- 
rated in  order  to  secure  the  harmonious  functioning  of 
our  body"27  (p.  65).  He  published  his  first  results  in 
1912.  He  then  showed  a  lamb  born  of  an  ewe  whose 
ovaries  he  had  removed,  replacing  them  with  the  ovaries 
of  her  younger  sister.  His  most  important  paper  was 
read  in  October,  1919,  on  "Testicular  Grafts."  He  had 
been  experimenting  on  flocks  of  sheep  and  goats,  graft- 
ing the  whole  gland  in  twenty-five,  large  fragments  in 
fifty-eight,  and  small  ones  in  thirty-seven  individuals. 
Transplantation  was  effected  subcutaneously  sixty-five 
times,  in  the  scrotum  itself  thirty-two  times,  and  twenty- 
three  times  in  the  peritoneum.  Anastomosis  did  not  fol- 
low ;  nor  was  it  necessary.  Testicular  tissue,  he  thinks, 
has  remarkable  aptitude  for  transplantation  and  a 
microscopist,  M.  Retterer,  shows  us  with  abundant  illus- 
trations just  what  takes  place.  The  nutrition  of  the 
small  fragments  was  more  easily  assured  than  that  of 
the  large  fragments  or  the  whole.  Sometimes  where  sex 
power  is  restored  in  old  animals  so  that  they  bear  young, 

*  Life:     A  Study  of  the  Means  of  Restoring  Vital  Energy  and  Pro- 
longing Life,  New  York,  1920,  160  p. 

310 


BIOLOGY  AND  PHYSIOLOGY 

the  parental  instinct  seems  weakened,  but  the  rejuvena- 
tion effects  of  this  process,  as  his  many  photographs 
show,  are  marked.  The  old  and  debilitated  animals  be- 
come well,  lively,  vigorous,  and  belligerent. 

Voronoff  is  very  candid  in  admitting  that  his  interest 
and  enthusiasm  may  cause  him  unconsciously  to  over- 
estimate the  rejuvenating  effects  of  his  grafts,  and  he 
also  admits  that  he  does  not  yet  know  how  long  the  bene- 
ficial effects  will  last.  That  they  have  done  so  for  two  or 
even  three  years  is  beyond  question.  He  is  conscious 
of  the  incredulity  of  biological  experts  but  reminds  them 
that  a  society  of  physicists,  when  first  shown  the  phono- 
graph, insisted  that  it  was  ventriloquism.  He  calls 
attention  to  the  great  difficulties  in  his  field,  due  not  only 
to  prejudice  but  to  laws  that  forbid  the  taking  of  organs 
of  healthy  men  killed  by  accident.  He  does  not  expect 
surgery  will  ever  remove  glands  or  even  portions  of 
them  from  the  living  young  to  revitalize  the  old,  in 
human  subjects,  although  he  thinks  that  perhaps  "the 
restoration  of  the  vital  energy  and  the  productive  power 
of  Pasteur  may  well  be  worth  the  slight  pain  inflicted  on 
the  robust  porter."  Most  men,  however,  would  prefer 
to  lose  an  eye  rather  than  one  of  these  glands,  as  the 
price  proposed  by  a  few  who  offered  themselves  for  this 
purpose  shows. 

Voronoff  sees  a  great  future  possible  for  glandular 
transplantation  and  grafting  between  men  and  animals 
but  shows  that  this  can  never  be  very  effective  for  man 
save  with  apes,  to  whom  he  is  so  much  more  closely 
related,  even  in  the  makeup  and  properties  of  his  blood, 
than  to  any  other  species.  Thus  the  organ  of  an  ape 
transplanted  to  man  will  find  there  nutritive  and  other 
conditions  very  like  those  it  was  used  to.  Surgery  has 
done  much  and  wonderful  grafting  in  the  war,  even  of 
bones,  and  now  man,  "the  talented  ape,"  as  Huxley 
called  him,  is  recognizing  his  simian  ancestry  in  a  new 


SENESCENCE 

way.  A  fibula  congenially  missing  in  a  child  was  suc- 
cessfully transplanted  from  an  ape,  and  the  radiogram 
showed  complete  intussusception,  no  absorption,  and  it 
functioned  well.  Voronoff  transplanted  the  thyroid  gland 
of  an  ape  into  the  neck  of  a  boy  of  fourteen,  who  was 
lapsing  to  cretinism,  with  remarkable  results  which  he 
describes  in  detail  and  with  photographs,  although  the 
ape  from  which  the  thyroid  was  taken  died.  The  trans- 
planted gland  was  not  merely  tolerated  and  then  expelled 
as  a  foreign  body  or  resorbed  but  the  graft  seemed  to 
really  take  and  its  effects  to  be  permanent  and  not  tem- 
porary, like  those  due  to  the  ingestion  of  thyroid  tablets. 
The  boy  changed  in  his  habits,  his  school  work  improved 
remarkably,  and  the  last  heard  from  him  was  that  he  was 
a  soldier  at  the  front.  Here  the  beneficial  effects  were 
marked  and  traced  for  six  years  and  seemed  to  promise 
permanence.  Other  grafts  from  apes  for  cretinism  have 
been  made,  but  because  chimpanzees,  which  are  best  for 
this  purpose,  are  very  hard  to  procure  in  sufficient  num- 
bers, this  process  must  always  be  limited.  Voronoff  has, 
however,  made  no  grafts,  even  of  thyroids,  from  parent 
to  child  save  in  one  case ;  and  here,  although  the  young 
imbecile  was  nearly  twenty  when  the  operation  was  per- 
formed, marked  improvement  took  place.  The  ape  is, 
in  a  sense,  however,  superior  to  man,  as  represented  by 
the  quality  of  these  organs,  owing  perhaps  to  a  more 
robust  physical  constitution ;  or  it  may  be  due  to  the  fact 
that  with  the  first  boy  the  graft  was  from  a  young  ape 
and  the  latter  from  his  mature  mother. 

For  woman,  for  whom  old  age  has  perhaps  even 
greater  terrors  than  for  man,  such  restoration  has  not 
yet  been  made.  Indeed,  ovariotomy  has  less  effects 
upon  young  women  than  does  castration  upon  man,  so 
that  here  we  face  a  new  problem  that  cannot  yet  be 
solved.  The  problem  now  is  whether  we  can  generalize 
yet  from  these  special  studies,  including  bone  grafting 

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BIOLOGY  AND  PHYSIOLOGY 

and  the  surgery  of  transplantation  of  other  organs. 
Kidney  grafting  has  been  successful  as  yet  only  on  cats 
and  dogs  but  opotherapy  or  the  administration  of  gland- 
ular extracts  of  animals  when  our  own  fail  is  in  its 
infancy,  although  it  does  seem  to  give  promise  of  defer- 
ring death  and  increasing  the  vigor  of  human  life.  In- 
deed, he  thinks  that  the  renewal  of  worn-out  glandular 
mechanisms  by  grafting  may  even  become  a  common- 
place. The  vital  fluid  supplied  by  these  organs  "restores 
energy  in  all  cells  and  spreads  happiness  and  a  feeling 
of  well-being  and  the  plenitude  of  life  throughout  our 
organism."  The  idea  of  controlling  this  marvelous  force 
and  placing  it  at  our  service  when  the  natural  sources 
of  our  energy  begin  to  dry  up  with  the  advance  of  age 
has  long  haunted  the  minds  of  investigators,  and  Paul 
Bert  and  Oilier  decades  ago  dreamed  of  a  day  when  old 
organs  might  be  set  aside  like  wornout  clothes  and  re- 
placed by  new  ones.  "Several  of  these  animals  operated 
upon  have  exceeded  the  age  limit  which  animals  of  their 
species  generally  attain  and,  instead  of  showing  signs 
of  decrepitude  and  senility,  they  give  promise  of  aston- 
ishing vigor." 

Louis  Berman,  M.D.,28  tells  us  that  infancy  is  the 
epoch  of  the  thymus,  childhood  of  the  pineal,  adolescence 
of  whatever  gland  is  left  in  control  as  the  result  of  the 
life  struggle,  and  senility  is  the  epoch  of  gradual  endo- 
crine insufficiency.  The  discovery  of  the  effects  of  endo- 
crine secretions  he  compares  with  that  of  radium  and 
thinks  that  by  control  of  this  function  we  may  be  able 
to  modify  the  rigidity  of  Weismann's  dogma  and  affect 
heredity  itself.  He  draws  a  very  long  bow  and  even  at- 
tempts to  characterize  important  personages  and  races 
according  to  the  predominance  of  thyroid,  pituitary,  or 

™The  Glands  Regulating  Personality:  A  study  of  the  glands  of  in- 
ternal secretion  in  relation  to  the  types  of  human  nature.  New  York, 
MacMillan,  1921.  300  p. 

313 


SENESCENCE 

adrenal  secretions  and  sees  here  the  fundamental  deter- 
minants of  human  character  and  conduct.  Well  in- 
formed and  expert  as  he  is  in  this  field,  his  views, 
though  bold  and  interesting,  are,  it  must  be  admitted, 
more  or  less  speculative  in  the  present  state  of  our 
knowledge,  and  he  devotes  little  consideration  to  old  age 
or  to  the  methods  of  deferring  it. 

If  we  conceive  life  as  the  sum  total  of  all  the  forces 
that  resist  death  and  death  in  its  essence  as  the  queller 
of  life,  it  is  to  biology,  not  to  theology  or  philosophy, 
that  we  must  look  for  our  most  authoritative  and  nor- 
mative ideas  of  both  life  and  death.  We  must  examine 
not  only  the  now  very  copious  data  that  this  science 
already  supplies  but  also  the  instrument  that  defines, 
delivers,  and  interprets  them,  namely,  the  mind,  so  that 
psychology  must  henceforth  have  a  place  here  second 
only  to  biology  in  formulating  conclusions.  Now,  psy- 
chology teaches  not  only  that  there  are  certain  determin- 
ing tendencies  that  always,  in  part  at  least  below  the 
threshold  of  consciousness,  direct  the  course  of  thought, 
slowly  build  up  centers  of  apperception  and  interest,  and 
that  must  always  be  reckoned  with  sooner  or  later  not 
only  in  the  treatment  of  any  subject  in  which  their 
action  is  involved  but  also  when  almost  any  scientific 
laws  of  nature  are  formulated,  but  also  that,  quite  apart 
from  their  primary  significance  for  the  field  in  which 
they  arose,  they  have  a  secondary  anagogic  value  in 
other  fields,  in  which  they  become  symbols,  often  of 
great  efficacy.  Only  the  lower  alchemists  sought  to 
evolve  gold  from  baser  metals  and  this  quest  we  now 
know  was  always  and  everywhere  really  subordinate  to 
the  effort  to  evolve  the  summum  bonum  in  human  life. 
So  the  modern  sciences  that  deal  with  life  and  death, 
health  and  disease,  are  really  directed  far  more  than 
they  know,  even  in  those  researches  upon  the  lower 
forms  of  life  and  most  abnormal  processes,  by  the 

3H 


BIOLOGY  AND  PHYSIOLOGY 

deeper,  determining  motivation  to  know  better  and  to 
influence  more  the  conditions  of  human  life.  Thus  a 
truer  and  larger  self-knowledge  for  man  is,  in  this  sense, 
their  ultimate  goal. 

In  view  of  this,  what  psychologist  can  for  a  moment 
doubt  that  the  old  problem  which  F.  W.  H.  Myers  called 
the  most  insistent  that  ever  haunted  the  mind  of  man 
has  contributed  very  much  to  stimulate  interest  in  Weis- 
mann's  doctrine  of  the  immortality  of  the  germ  plasm 
and  for  a  wide  lay  public  has  given  a  zest  and  interest  in 
phenomena  that  can  hardly  be  observed  at  all  save 
through  a  microscope  and  by  an  expert.  If  we  had  an 
analysis  of  Weismann's  own  consciousness  from  his 
first  conception  of  this  idea  to  its  full  development  we 
should  doubtless  find  the  same  factor.  True,  we  search 
his  writings  in  vain  for  any  intimation  that  he  recog- 
nized any  such  influence,  but  I  think  there  can  be  no 
doubt  that  had  he  been  a  psychologist  interested  in  the 
sources  of  his  own  motivations  and  had  he  left  us  an 
autobiography  as  intimate  as  that  of  Spencer,  Wundt, 
or  even  Darwin,  we  should  have  seen  that  he  realized 
that  he  was  only  giving  a  new  answer  to  the  oldest  of  all 
culture  problems.  Of  course,  no  psychoanalyst  or 
geneticist  would  claim  that  Weismann  was  seeking  an 
elixir  vita  or  a  new  fountain  of  youth  for  himself  or  for 
others,  but  it  would  be  equally  extreme,  on  the  other 
hand,  to  deny  that  in  the  very  use  of  the  concept  and 
term  immortal,  as  he  applied  them  to  germ  plasm  and 
protozoa,  he  was  propounding  a  new  if  partial  surrogate 
answer  to  the  problem  of  a  larger  life  for  man.  Indeed, 
we  might  go  further  and  suggest  that  in  his  extreme 
pronouncements  against  the  inheritance  of  acquired 
qualities  he  gave  way  to  the  same  basal  disposition  or 
diathesis  that  made  theologians  so  exiguous  in  for- 
mulating conceptions  of  the  inviolability  of  divine  de- 
crees. 

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SENESCENCE 

Another  underlying  psychic  determinant  is  found  in 
the  intense  popular  interest  in  investigations  like  those 
of  Voronoff,  Steinach,  and  Carrel,  of  which  the  latter 
is  perhaps  least  conscious  while  the  former  is  almost  as 
tinglingly  so  throughout  as  Haeckel  was  of  these  older 
concepts.  That  highly  differentiated  and  complex 
somatic  tissues  removed  from  the  body  and  given  a 
more  fit  medium,  and  kept  from  all  products  of  decom- 
position, etc.,  can  keep  on  functioning  and  growing  for 
years,  better  than  they  had  done  in  the  body  in  which 
they  originated,  neither  has  nor  is  ever  likely  to  have 
any  real  practical  utility  for  prolonging  or  intensifying 
human  life.  The  fact  may  have  a  certain  moral  for 
cleanliness  and  even  for  nutrition  but  we  can  never  wash 
out  the  tissues  of  the  body  or  keep  each  of  its  cells  in  an 
optimum  environment.  Yet  even  here  the  mind  finds  a 
faint  if,  all  things  considered,  somewhat  pathetic  ele- 
ment of  hope  that  old  age  and  death  may  sometime  be 
deferred. 

Nor  can  we  ever  hope  to  ward  death  off  by  keeping 
the  tissues  of  the  body  young  and  growing  to  the  end  of 
life  and  breaking  the  law,  to  which  nearly  all  species  are 
subject,  of  attaining  their  maximum  size  long  before 
age  and  decline  set  in.  It  has  long  been  realized  that  one 
of  the  first  signs  of  the  advent  of  the  chronic  hereditary 
diseases  in  children  is  the  arrest  of  growth  but  man  can 
never,  of  course,  hope  to  approximate  immortality  by 
attaining  gigantic  size.  Nor  can  we  hope  to  advance 
toward  the  old  idea  of  macrobiotism  by  permanently 
lowering  the  temperature  within  the  body,  as  experi- 
menters show  can  be  done  with  great  increase  of  life  for 
certain  of  its  lower  forms,  especially  those  called  cold- 
blooded which  take  the  temperature  of  the  medium  in 
which  they  live.  And  yet  here  man  has  a  very  old  in- 
stinct, reinforced  by  modern  hygiene,  to  avoid  excessive 
heat,  an  instinct  that  perhaps  originally  impelled  him  to 

316 


BIOLOGY  AND  PHYSIOLOGY 

leave  tropic  regions  and  haunt  the  edge  of  retreating 
glaciers.  Nor  can  we  ever  expect  to  rejuvenate  man  by 
bringing  about  a  dedifferentiation  of  organs  or  func- 
tions because  just  this  is  the  price  we  pay  for  progress, 
evolution,  and  individuation.  But  this  concept,  too,  has 
many  prelusive  forms  in  the  early  developmental  history 
of  human  consciousness  and  it  has  its  own  obvious  ana- 
gogic  meaning.  If  we  follow  these  trends  they  lead  us, 
of  course,  straight  to  Pantheism  and  give  us  a  painful 
sense  of  the  limitations  inherent  in  personality  itself. 
As  to  the  conclusion  of  Loeb,  that  life  departs  with 
breath  because  the  absence  of  a  fresh  supply  of  oxygen 
lets  loose  dissolutive  chemical  changes  its  presence  pre- 
vented, the  pragmatic  layman  can  only  point  to  the 
recognition  that  in  a  few  generations  has  become  world- 
wide, of  the  value  of  ventilation,  deep  breathing,  and 
the  adequate  oxidation  of  tissues.  This  shows  that  man 
felt  that  life  was  closely  bound  up  with  oxygen  long 
before  he  could  prove  it.  So  the  biological  evidence  that 
it  is  the  brain  or  nervous  system  that  dies  first  and 
determines  the  death  of  all  the  other  parts  and  func- 
tions, if  it  has  any  culture  correlate,  finds  it  probably  in 
the  hazy  quarter  truths  of  the  doctrines  of  the  mental 
healers,  that  far  more  human  ills  and  far  more  deaths 
and  preventions  and  postponements  of  death  than  we 
know  are  amenable  to  mind  cure  because  they  are  mind- 
made. 

The  only  practical  hope  of  easement  from  the  hard- 
ships of  senescence  and  for  the  postponement  of  death 
now  tenable  is  that  now  arising  faintly  and  tentatively 
that,  some  day,  some  mitigation  of  the  terrors  of  old  age 
and  death  may  be  found  by  glandular  implantation  or 
perhaps  even  by  the  injection  of  the  secretions  of  certain 
glands.  We  know  that  the  germinal  glands,  and  espe- 
cially their  products,  have  a  unique  vitality  of  their  own 
and  also  that  they  exert  a  remarkable  and  all-pervasive 

317 


SENESCENCE 

influence  upon  all  the  organs  and  functions  of  the  body ; 
and  that  thyroid  extract  retards  and  its  absence  precipi- 
tates all  the  processes  of  aging.  The  new  studies  in  this 
field  suggest  that  glands  may  be  the  sovereign  masters 
of  life.  These  studies  are  yet,  however,  in  their  infancy 
and  it  will  be,  at  the  best,  a  long  time  before  we  can 
know  whether  they  are  able  to  fulfill  their  promise  to  the 
human  heart  and  to  the  will  to  live. 

I  deem  it,  however,  very  significant  that  contem- 
poraneously with  the  discovery  and  exploitation  of 
endocrine  functions,  and  especially  those  of  the  sex 
glands,  from  another  field  and  quite  independently  have 
come  the  discovery  and  exploitation  of  the  unconscious 
and  the  recognition  that  its  chief  content  is  sexual.  The 
analogies  between  these  two  lines  of  advance  and  their 
real  relation  with  each  other  have  not  yet  been  fully 
recognized,  much  less  wrought  out.  But  already  there 
is  promise  of  a  new  and  more  stimulating  rapport  be- 
tween biology  and  analytic  and  genetic  psychology.  If 
researches  in  the  former  field  ever  have  the  therapeutic 
value  already  so  abundantly  illustrated  in  the  latter,  we 
shall  indeed  be  fortunate.  Just  now  this  seems  not  prob- 
able for  a  long  time.  But  the  physiological  dominance 
of  sex  glands  and  their  products,  and  the  immense  role 
played  by  sex  life,  especially  in  man,  suggest  that  it  is  in 
this  field  that  the  cure  of  his  most  grievous  ills  must  be 
sought,  just  as  the  oldest  and  most  persistent  myths  and 
legends  have  so  long  taught  that  it  was  in  this  field  that 
the  so-called  fall  of  man  took  place. 


CHAPTER  VII 

REPORT  ON  QUESTIONNAIRE  RETURNS 

Their  value  suggestive  but  only  for  a  class — (i)  Effects  of  the 
first  realization  of  the  approach  of  old  age — (2)  To  what  do  you 
ascribe  your  long  life? — (3)  How  do  you  keep  well? — (4)  Are  you 
troubled  by  regrets? — (5)  What  temptations  do  you  feel — old  or  new? 
(6)  What  duties  do  you  feel  you  still  owe  to  others  or  to  self? — (7) 
Is  interest  in  public  affairs  for  the  far  future  and  past,  as  compared 
with  what  is  closer  at  hand,  greater  or  less? — (8)  In  what  do  you 
take  your  greatest  pleasures? — (9)  Do  you  enjoy  the  society  of  chil- 
dren, youth,  adults,  those  of  your  own  age,  more  or  less  than  formerly? 

—  (10)  Would  you  live  your  life  over  again? — (n)  Did  you  experience 
an  "Indian  summer"  of  renewed  vigor  before  the  winter  of  age  began? 

—  (12)  Do  you  rely  more  or  less  upon  doctors  than  formerly? — (13) 
Do  you  get  more  or  less  from  the  clergy  and  the  church  than  formerly? 
— (14)    Do  you  think  more  or   less   of   dying   and  the  Hereafter? — 
A  few  individual  returns  from  eminent  people. 

PERHAPS  no  one  but  a  genetic  psychologist  can  realize 
how  very  widely  the  successive  stages  of  life  in  man 
differ  from  each  other.  Underneath  the  tenuous  mem- 
ory continuum  that  is  the  chief  basis  of  all  feeling  of 
identity  between  our  present  and  former  selves,  deeper 
even  than  every  unity  of  life  plan  and  persistence  of 
disposition,  are  the  great  changes  the  years  bring. 
These  are,  indeed,  so  great  that  although  they  very  com- 
monly modulate,  each  into  the  next  stage  of  the  series  by 
almost  imperceptible  gradations,  we  all  really  live  not 
one  but  a  succession  of  lives.  Further  than  this,  just  as 
in  dementia  prsecox  the  normal  development  of  the 
psyche  is  permanently  arrested  in  a  juvenile  stage,  so, 
but  far  more  commonly,  the  normal  progress  from  ma- 
turity to  senectitude  is  arrested;  and  in  the  decades  of 

319 


SENESCENCE 

involution,  which  is  just  as  progressive  and  interesting 
as  evolution,  the  old  cling  to  or  leave  with  great  reluc- 
tance their  mature  stage  and  so  never  achieve  true 
senectitude.  Just  as  the  precocious  dement  balks  in 
adolescence  at  the  growing  complexity  and  arduousness 
of  the  problems  of  adulthood  and  so  fails  to  mature  be- 
cause he  lacks  the  energy  or  hereditary  momentum  to  do 
so,  so  the  old  very  often  find  themselves  inadequate  to 
the  new  tasks  involved  in  beating  the  great  retreat. 
They  cannot  break  from  the  things  that  are  behind  and 
reach  forward  to  those  that  are  before  and  they  cling 
with  a  tenacity  that  is  purely  arrestive  to  a  stage  of  life 
that  has  passed.  They  refuse  to  accept  old  age  and  to 
make  the  most  and  best  of  it,  to  face  its  tasks  and  to 
improve  all  its  opportunities.  If  they  do  not  paint,  dye, 
pad,  or  affect  the  fashions  and  manners  of  the  young 
(for  old  age  may  show  traits  of  narcissism),  when  the 
call  comes  to  move  on  to  a  new  phase  of  life,  their  men- 
tality defaults.  This  type  of  mental  defect  has  never 
so  far  been  adequately  characterized  but  it  is  probably 
far  more  common  than  what  is  usually  called  senile 
dementia,  of  which  it  is  almost  the  diametrical  opposite, 
although  because  of  its  prevalence  it  has  a  better  claim 
to  this  designation. 

Believing  profoundly  that  involution  is  just  as  inter- 
esting a  phase  of  life  as  evolution  and  not  being  satisfied 
with  the  poems,  essays,  and  meditations  of  literary  men 
and  women  who  have  addressed  the  public  on  the  theme 
of  senescence,  which  are,  as  we  saw  in  a  former  chapter, 
often  more  or  less  hortatory,  consolatory,  or  else  were 
composed  as  exercises  to  hearten  themselves  against  the 
great  enemy,  it  seemed  worth  while  to  try  to  seek  a  new 
contact  with  the  fresh  spontaneous  thoughts  and  feel- 
ings of  normal  old  people  concerning  their  estate. 

Years  ago  I  had  visited  homes  for  the  aged,  held  con- 
verse with  many  inmates  and  officials,  had  given  each 

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QUESTIONNAIRE  RETURNS 

inmate  a  tiny  blue  book  and  asked  them  to  answer  a  few 
questions  and  add  anything  that  occurred  to  them  that 
they  thought  characteristic  of  their  stage  of  life.  The 
records  thus  secured,  although  voluminous  enough,  had 
very  little  value.  Most  who  answered  were  uneducated 
and  the  data  they  supplied  were  usually  trivial,  tediously 
and  irrelevantly  reminiscent,  or  else  descriptive  of  sur- 
roundings in  earlier  life,  complaints,  wishes,  fears,  etc.,  so 
that  I  realized  that  true  old  age  as  I  had  conceived  it  was 
not  to  be  sought  in  such  institutions.  There  was  pathos 
and  pessimism  galore,  while  disciplined  tranquillity  and 
serenity  were  very  rare.  There  is  doubtless  material 
enough  in  even  the  most  inarticulate  and  insignificant 
life  to  repay  the  longest  and  most  painstaking  study. 
Perhaps,  too,  a  psychotherapy  may  sometime  be  evolved 
that  will  launch  such  stranded  and  arrested  lives  out 
again  into  the  current  and  give  them  full  fruition  of  all 
the  fruitage  of  life.  But  the  world  is  as  yet  far  from 
any  such  beneficent  ministry. 

Accordingly,  I  turned  to  another  source  and  selected 
a  few  score  of  names  of  mostly  eminent  and  some  very 
distinguished  old  people,  both  acquaintances  and 
strangers,  and  addressed  to  each  a  simple  questionnaire, 
also  inviting  spontaneous  impartations  in  addition  to 
responses  to  the  points  suggested.  Some  of  those  who 
did  me  the  honor  of  replying,  and  often  with  much 
detail,  are  people  of  national  and  international  reputa- 
tion and  I  wish  I  had  not  promised  to  withhold  their 
names  for  this  would  have  given  greatly  added  interest 
to  the  following  report.  All  are  cultivated  Americans 
and  thus  they  represent  a  single  class.  Most  are  Anglo- 
Saxons  and  I  have  not  been  able  to  gather  much  material 
from  Oriental  or  non-Christian  sources,  desirable  and 
important  as  this  would  be.  My  data  are,  however, 
sufficiently  copious  to  illustrate  the  chief  types  of  atti- 
tudes within  their  class.  To  the  returns  from  this 

321 


SENESCENCE 

source  I  have  added  data  from  less  than  a  score  of 
others  of  the  same  class  with  whom  I  have  personal 
acquaintance  and  I  have  drawn  but  very  little  from  the 
rich  field  of  autobiography  for  my  inductions.  Such 
data  can,  of  course,  only  yield  results  that  are  far  more 
suggestive  than  conclusive,  and  so  I  forbear  from  all 
statistics  because  the  number  of  my  respondents  is  too 
small.  But  although  what  follows  does  not  represent 
the  great  majority  of  old  people  it  does  have  a  psycho- 
logical value  that  I  deem  as  unique  as  it  is  pertinent  to 
my  theme.  It  is  also  perhaps  significant  that  of  those 
who  wrote  expressing  interest  and  an  intention  to 
respond,  not  one  has  done  so  after  an  interval  of  several 
months.  It  should  perhaps  also  be  mentioned  here  that 
the  suggestion  of  attempting  this  book  came  from  nearly 
two-score  letters  from  old  people,  which  were  addressed 
to  me  through  the  editor  of  the  Atlantic  Monthly  and 
were  evoked  by  an  anonymous  article  I  published  on 
"Old  Age"  in  the  January,  1921,  number  of  that  maga- 
zine. I  have  endeavored  to  keep  the  following  report  of 
these  somewhat  heterogeneous  data  as  objective  as  pos- 
sible, although  it  would  be  absurd  to  claim  that  by  such 
a  method  on  such  a  theme  I  have  entirely  escaped  sub- 
jective bias. 

How  and  at  what  age  did  you  first  realise  the  ap- 
proach of  old  age? 

This  realization  not  infrequently  begins  in  the  forties 
and  increases  thereafter,  often  intensively  with  the 
beginning  of  each  new  decade.  The  first  sign  of  bald- 
ness, the  first  touch  of  fatigue  at  stated  tasks,  lapse  of 
memory  for  names,  waning  potency  in  men;  and  the  first 
gray  hairs,  wrinkles,  fading  of  complexion,  and  change 
of  figure,  etc.,  in  women  are  often  specified  in  our  re- 
turns. Such  and  many  other  signs  usually  gave  the  first 
sad  recognition  that  the  meridian  of  life  was  being 
322 


QUESTIONNAIRE  RETURNS 

crossed  and  that  gradual  declination  was  just  ahead.  In 
many  a  man  and  woman  this  is,  as  has  been  recognized, 
a  dangerous  age  and  it  often  comes  in  the  middle  and 
later  thirties  in  women.  The  latter,  realizing  that  their 
summer  is  ending,  sometimes  break  away  from  old 
restraints  and  give  themselves  more  liberties,  not  only 
social  but  moral.  The  first  glimpse  of  the  specter  of 
senility  ahead  puts  them  in  a  now-or-never  mood.  Men 
ask  themselves  if  they  will  be  content  to  go  on  as  they 
are  so  far  heading,  so  that  there  will  be  nothing  new  to 
be  written  in  the  story  of  their  life  save  only  the  date 
of  their  death.  They  wonder  if  the  future  is  to  be  as  the 
past  and  perhaps  make  an  inventory  of  their  unrealized 
ideals,  hopes,  and  wishes,  and  cross  many  of  them  off 
their  ledger  as  bad  debts  they  owe  themselves  but  can 
never  collect.  This  crossing  the  line  is  for  some  so 
serious  a  matter  that  it  may  cause  an  abrupt  turn  in  their 
life  line,  which  starts  off  in  a  new  direction,  as  is  illus- 
trated in  a  few  conspicuous  examples  in  Chapter  I.  This 
touch  of  autumn  in  August,  however,  rarely  brings  frost 
or  blight  but  leaves  only  a  trace  of  a  new  seriousness  and 
perhaps  sadness,  while  otherwise  all  goes  on  as  before. 
In  a  few  cases  the  first  realization  that  one  is  getting 
old  springs  upon  the  soul,  as  if  from  ambush,  on  some 
trivial  occasion  and  clings  like  an  obsession  that  remits 
only  to  recur  again  and  again.  The  majority,  however, 
promptly  and  ruthlessly  suppress  all  such  intimations 
beneath  the  threshold  of  consciousness,  telling  not  only 
others  but  themselves  that  they  are  just  as  young  and 
capable  as  ever,  thus  refusing  to  recognize  that  age  is 
upon  them  till  perhaps  the  sixth  or  seventh  decade. 
Thus  the  old  are  often  the  last  to  recognize  in  them- 
selves infirmities  that  have  long  been  patent  to  others. 
This  is  one  of  the  benignities  of  nature,  for  to  no  dis- 
ease, not  even  consumption,  does  she  give  a  more  effect- 
ive opiate.  A  man  of  ninety  still  retains  his  post  as  head 

323 


SENESCENCE 

of  a  great  concern  he  created  in  his  youth,  to  its  serious 
detriment,  convinced  that  he  is  better  than  ever  and  that 
the  scores  of  younger  men  under  him  lack  the  efficiency 
of  those  of  his  own  generation.  "He  was  on  the  verge 
of  resigning  twenty  years  ago,"  said  one  of  his  subor- 
dinates to  me,  "but  now  he  does  not  know  enough  to 
do  so." 

On  the  other  hand,  some  seem  to  take  a  new  lease  of 
life  in  this  youth  of  old  age.  It  is  not  so  much  that  they 
have  a  new  sense  of  the  value  of  time  but  because  they 
have  taken  in  sail  in  other  directions  and,  realizing  the 
limitations  of  life,  have  focused  more  sharply  upon  the 
things  they  deem  most  essential. 

To  what  do  you  ascribe  your  long  life? 

Good  heredity  is  much  more  often  specified  than  any- 
thing else.  There  is  a  tendency  in  the  old  to  inventory 
the  virtues  of  parents  and  ancestors  and  a  deep-seated 
belief,  even  in  these  democratic  days,  that  blood  will  tell. 
Four  correspondents  believed  their  constitution  was 
weak  and  that  the  early  realization  of  this  called  their 
attention  to  personal  hygiene,  so  that  these  individuals 
ascribe  their  long  life  more  to  their  own  effort  than  to 
inheritance.  Next  in  rating  is  the  environment  of  early 
life.  In  our  land  many  have  been  born  in  the  country 
and  led  a  laborious  life  in  youth  and  later  changed  to 
urban  surroundings  and  to  more  sedentary  habits,  which 
always  involves  a  considerable  strain  of  readjustment. 
Where  this  change  has  been  successfully  weathered 
there  is  a  strong  disposition  to  place  a  very  high  em- 
phasis upon  the  beneficence  of  strenuous  physical  activ- 
ity in  the  formative  period. 

Next  in  appreciation  comes  the  preservative  influence 
of  good  and  temperate  habits,  reinforced  by  observa- 
tions of  acquaintances  of  early  life  who,  by  reason  of 
less  moderation,  have  preceded  them  to  the  cemetery. 

324 


QUESTIONNAIRE  RETURNS 

When  our  own  associates  die  we  tend  to  draw  the  les- 
sons of  their  physical  and  moral  life.  One  ascribes  her 
longevity  to  the  very  early  implantation  of  the  idea  that 
everything  must  be  determined  by  its  bearing  upon  her 
power  to  bring  healthy  children  into  the  world.  Most 
mention,  and  many  stress,  the  absence  of  worry  and 
overwork,  although  one  insists  that  he  had  been  chron- 
ically anxious  from  the  first,  suffering  by  day  for  years 
from  apprehensions  of  evil  and  lying  awake  nights  try- 
ing to  plan  the  reconstruction  of  the  universe.  Several 
ascribe  their  length  of  years  to  the  fact  that  as  they 
advanced  in  age  they  learned  betimes  to  give  up  former 
duties  and  lay  off  burdens  they  could  no  longer  carry 
with  impunity.  It  is  evident  that  this  realization  of  the 
effect  of  years  differs  very  widely  in  different  individ- 
uals and  seems  almost  lacking  in  some.  Several  take 
pride  in  the  fact  that  although  they  inherited  a  short  life 
from  both  parents  and  grandparents  they  have  suc- 
ceeded in  greatly  prolonging  it,  and  by  diet  and  regimen 
in  overcoming  hereditary  handicaps.  One  determined 
early  in  life  to  make  the  mind  rule  the  body.  One  old 
lady  ascribes  her  vigor  to  progressive  self-forgetfulness 
and  devotion  to  the  service  of  others. 

An  interesting  case,  which  I  deem  typical  of  many 
in  these  Christian  Science  days,  declares  that  he  early 
learned  that  all  living  animals,  especially  man,  have  "a 
constructive,  preserving,  and  renewing  principle  or 
energy  within  them  fully  competent  to  care  for  the  body 
in  every  particular,  demonstrated  by  the  evidence  of  a 
vast  number  of  recorded  cures  of  so-called  incurable 
diseases  without  any  external  remedial  agency."  This 
element  can  become  amenable  to  conscious  control.  "We 
are  composed  of  a  thousand  billion  cells,  far  greater  in 
number  than  that  of  the  entire  population  of  the  globe 
since  man  arrived  and  each  of  them  infinitely  complex 
and  charged  with  potencies."  With  such  a  force  man 

325 


SENESCENCE 

should  place  no  limitations  upon  himself,  for  he  has  in- 
exhaustible recuperative  energy,  etc.  If  such  a  faith 
has  little  justification  for  science,  it  may,  nevertheless, 
give  a  mental  attitude  that  is  conducive  to  a  poise  and 
confidence  that  in  itself  has  marked  hygienic  and  thera- 
peutic value.  It  is  interesting  to  note  that  cultivated 
men  and  women  seem  far  less  prone  than  the  ignorant  to 
the  medical  fetichism  that  ascribes  exceptional  value  to 
some  nostrum  or  single  item  of  diet  or  regimen  and  this 
suggests  how  fast  the  age-long  quest  for  a  universal 
panacea  is  vanishing  from  modern  consciousness.  As 
men  grow  old  and  have  a  long  experience  and  youthful 
friends  have  passed  away,  it  is  inevitable  that  they 
should  seek  the  cause  of  their  longevity  and  this  urge 
would  naturally  increase  with  years.  Therefore,  while 
the  individual  answers  to  this  question  have  little  scien- 
tific value,  they  are  of  both  psychological  and  practical 
interest.  Underneath  them  all  there  is  a  tendency  to 
identify  hygiene  with  morals  and  most  men  who  achieve 
great  age  thus  tend  to  look  with  complacency  upon  their 
life  as  a  whole  as  a  triumph  of  virtue,  even  though  in 
fact  it  may  have  been  quite  irregular. 

How  do  you  keep  well,  that  is,  what  do  you  find 
especially  good  or  bad  in  diet,  regimen,  interests,  and 
personal  hygiene  generally? 

In  the  answers  to  this  question,  as  was  perhaps  to  be 
expected,  we  find  the  utmost  diversity.  Only  two  report 
that  they  eat  and  do  anything  that  appeals  to  them,  with 
no  special  attention  to  regimen.  Some  eschew  drugs, 
while  one  would  wager  that  he  had  taken  nearly  every 
kind  of  medicament  and  said  he  had  used  laxatives  daily 
for  thirty-eight  years.  One  had  found  great  reinforce- 
ment of  life  from  moderate  wine  drinking  and  thus  found 
prohibition  somewhat  reductive  of  his  vitality.  Some  en- 
tirely eschew  tea,  coffee,  and  tobacco,  while  most  indulge 

326 


QUESTIONNAIRE  RETURNS 

in  both  of  the  former  and  several  in  the  latter  in  moder- 
ation. Several  found  marked  reinforcement  when  they 
began  to  rest  or  perhaps  take  a  nap  in  the  middle  of  the 
day.  All  praise  early  retiring  and  insist  that  a  generous 
portion  of  the  twenty-four  hours  must  be  spent  in  bed, 
even  if  they  do  not  sleep.  Most  ascribe  much  virtue  to 
daily,  and  particularly  to  cold  baths,  shower,  spray,  etc., 
while  a  very  few  prefer  a  sponge-  or  only  a  rub-down. 
Most  stress  the  importance  of  exercise,  varied  and  out- 
of-doors,  particularly  walking,  while  some  emphasize 
the  value  of  a  little  all-round  indoor  gymnastics  that  call 
all  the  muscles  into  moderate  action.  Some  note  the 
avoidance  of  starchy  foods,  while  others  speak  of  the 
effectiveness  of  bran  or  other  agencies  against  constipa- 
tion, which  is,  rightly  or  wrongly,  felt  to  be  one  of  the 
morbific  tendencies  of  the  old,  although  others  believe 
that  some  degree  of  it  is  normal  at  this  stage  of  life. 
Only  one  felt  rejuvenated  by  vegetarianism,  while  many 
found  it  advantageous  to  eat  less  and  more  frequently. 
Most  had  given  considerable  attention  to  diet  and  had 
drawn  up  a  list  of  things  good  or  bad  for  them.  Some 
found  it  necessary  to  regulate  their  lives  with  reference 
to  some  special  morbid  tendency  of  kidneys,  intestines, 
heart,  lungs,  etc.  Some  laid  special  emphasis  upon  con- 
fining their  occupation  to  things  that  were  agreeable  or 
congenial,  while  things  distasteful  brought  fatigue 
early.  A  few  were  so  in  love  with  their  life-work,  or 
it  had  such  variety,  that  they  never  felt  the  need  of  a 
vacation,  while  others  were  very  dependent  upon  a  more 
or  less  stated  remission  of  work  or  change  of  scene  and 
activity,  not  only  yearly  but  at  every  week's  end. 

The  problem  of  finding  a  golden  mean  between  excess 
and  defective  diet,  exercise,  work,  and  excitement,  was 
almost  always  present.  The  fads  that  individuals 
stressed  were  horseback  and  bicycle  riding,  hunting, 
tramping,  sleeping  out-of-doors  on  an  open  porch,  devel- 

327 


SENESCENCE 

oping  a  programme  that  kept  both  mind  and  body  busy  all 
day  with  objective  things,  indulging  in  one  or  even  sev- 
eral avocations  often  far  removed  from  the  main  line  of 
interest,  etc.  Some  stressed  more  or  less  exact  routine, 
while  others  found  virtue  in  having  none  but  always  fol- 
lowing their  inner  inclination  and  took  pleasure  in 
breaking  up  old  habits.  One  old  man  loved  skating; 
another,  when  he  was  seventy-three,  took  up  automobil- 
ing  with  great  zest.  A  man  of  ninety  has  a  rub-down 
by  a  nurse  every  night  and  morning,  with  some  massage. 
Another  is  so  dependent  upon  the  food  to  which  he  is 
accustomed  that  he  always  takes  his  cook  with  him  in 
his  private  car  and  even  if  he  goes  out  to  dinner  must  be 
served  with  viands  prepared  by  this  particular  servitor. 
Then,  after  exactly  half  an  hour,  he  leaves  the  table, 
even  when  he  is  visiting,  for  a  brief  siesta.  DeSaverin 
tells  us  that  old  people  are  liable  to  develop  Epicurean 
appetites  and,  as  they  advance  in  age,  can  distinguish 
liquid  and  solid  viands  with  far  greater  acuteness  than 
when  they  were  younger.  Our  data  do  not,  however, 
confirm  this  but  suggest  that  gustatory  inclinations  grow 
more  amenable  to  reason.  Appetite,  we  are  told,  is  the 
safest  guide,  pointing  true  as  the  needle  to  the  pole,  to 
the  nutritive  needs  of  the  body.  It  is,  nevertheless,  very 
modifiable,  and  the  old  often  easily  come  to  like  the  food 
they  have  learned  is  good  for  them,  although  they  very 
rarely  adopt  dietaries  suggested  for  their  benefit  by 
nutrition  laboratories.  It  does  seem,  however,  that  there 
should  be  institutions  where  old  people  can  go  period- 
ically for  personal  surveys  of  all  their  habits  and  receive 
suggestions  that,  based  upon  their  idiosyncrasies,  would 
doubtless  be  marked  by  very  wide  individual  variations. 
It  is  certain  that  the  diet  and  regimen  most  advan- 
tageous for  the  person  of  one  diathesis  would  be  very 
deleterious  to  another. 

328 


QUESTIONNAIRE  RETURNS 

Are  you  troubled  with  regrets  for  things  done  or  not 
done  by  or  for  you? 

In  these  returns  there  is  no  vestige  of  tragic  remorse 
of  either  the  old  classic  or  theological  kind,  although 
only  one  disclaimed  every  trace  of  regret  for  anything 
in  the  past.  This  is  not  because  he  had  not  made  mis- 
takes but  because  he  believed,  as  nearly  all  did,  that 
regrets  were  vain.  Most  admitted  serious  errors  both 
of  omission  and  commission,  while  many  specified  waste 
of  time  and  energy,  misdirection,  bad  advice,  lack  of 
method,  continuity,  and  system.  One  bitterly  regretted 
her  choice  of  calling,  which  had  made  her  daily  work  a 
"crucifixion."  Several  regretted  that  they  had  not  been 
more  generous  and  deplored  the  too  absorbing  efforts 
they  had  made  for  acquisition.  Others  deplored  their 
training  as  children,  the  effects  of  which  it  had  taken 
years  to  overcome;  while  still  others  regretted  the  way 
in  which  they  had  brought  up  their  own  children.  Some 
thought  they  had  done  too  little  for  or  given  too  little 
attention  to  their  families.  Some  had  made  special 
efforts  to  cultivate  forgetfulness  of  faults  and  especially 
rankling  injustices  they  had  suffered  from  others.  One 
felt  that  he  had  come  into  the  world  not  by  his  own  will 
.but  as  an  accident  of  sexual  passion  and  therefore  felt 
himself  under  no  obligations  to  his  parents  and  not 
responsible  for  his  life  or  its  conduct.  Some  had  even 
learned  to  rejoice  in  their  mistakes  because  of  the  wis- 
dom that  had  thus  been  taught  them.  Not  a  few  took 
occasion  to  reflect  upon  their  satisfactions,  which  offset 
the  dissatisfaction  with  what  life  had  brought.  Many 
reproached  themselves  that  they  had  not  done  more, 
worked  harder,  had  more  to  show,  etc.  Other  old  people 
have  a  dull  and  sometimes  corroding  sense  of  sexual 
errors  in  their  past  that  may  have  impaired  the  quality 
of  all  their  family  relations  and  even  the  constitution  of 
their  children.  Some  are  prone  to  turn  to  thoughts  of 

329 


SENESCENCE 

specific  instances  of  outrageous  injustice,  so  that  their 
most  poignant  regret  is  that  they  have  never  been  able 
to  wreak  vengeance  upon  those  who  had  wronged  them. 

Many  specified  the  long  hardships  to  which  they  had 
been  subjected  by  too  strict  religious  and  moral  regimen 
and  blamed  their  parents  for  not  giving  them  instruction 
betimes  during  the  stage  of  pubertal  ferment.  A  few 
had  been  through  the  crisis  of  business  failure,  made 
mistaken  alliances,  or  been  mismated,  or  regretted  that 
they  had  not  married.  Not  infrequent  is  the  regret  of 
having  been  a  spendthrift,  wasted  a  patrimony ;  and  still 
more  frequent  are  the  mentions  of  injuries  to  health  by 
unhygienic  habits.  A  few  chiefly  deplored  the  fact  of 
not  being  able  to  believe  what  they  felt  they  should. 
Other  few  deplored  the  dullness  and  languor  of  their 
emotional  zests  and  that  they  take  less  interest  in  things 
than  formerly.  Most  who  make  decided  breaks  in 
middle  life  do  not  seem  to  regret  them,  although  more 
regret  a  series  of  circumnutations  among  various  oc- 
cupations before  they  found  the  right  one. 

It  would  seem  that  the  very  fact  that  man  has  suc- 
ceeded in  living  and  conserving  tolerable  health  till 
advanced  years  gives  a  feeling  that  he  has,  on  the  whole, 
succeeded  despite  errors  and  lapses,  and  there  seems  to 
be  at  least  a  tacit  agreement  on  the  part  of  all  that  it  is 
idle  to  regret  what  it  is  too  late  to  help.  Old  age  does  not, 
therefore,  seem  to  be  a  time  of  repentance  for  youthful 
follies  and  if  this  exists  at  all,  it  is  more  than  compen- 
sated for  by  a  complacency  that  things  have  not  been 
worse  than  they  were,  and  even  the  possibilities  of  the 
latter  bring  no  disquietude. 

What  temptations  do  you  feel,  old  or  new? 

More  of  my  respondents  failed  to  answer  this  question 
than  any  other  and  most  answers  were  brief.  It  is  very 
interesting  and  significant  to  note  that  resistances  to 

330 


QUESTIONNAIRE  RETURNS 

anything  like  confessionalism  increase  with  age.  If  the 
old  have  long  walked  in  ways  that  society  condemns, 
their  secrecy  about  it  has  been  too  long  and  habitual  to 
be  readily  broken.  This  is  one  reason  why  psychoanalysis 
totally  fails  with  the  old,  so  that  most  analysts  refuse 
to  take  patients  over  forty.  The  German  jurist,  Fried- 
rich,  said  that  everyone  was  a  potential  murderer,  be- 
cause at  some  moment  in  his  life  he  had  been  angry 
enough  to  kill  and  probably  would  have  done  so  if  every 
circumstance  had  favored.  So  the  candid  and  conscien- 
tious man  who  looks  back  upon  a  long  life  realizes  that 
he  has  done  or  nearly  done,  at  least  in  heart,  about  every 
crime  and  yielded  and  felt  promptings  to  about  every 
vice.  Probably  everyone,  too,  had  actually  done  things 
that  if  known  would  expose  him  to  obloquy.  Thus  the 
old  almost  never  go  to  the  confessional.  Moreover, 
there  is  a  benign  but  deep  instinct  in  us  to  forget  things 
we  have  done  that  would  disgrace  us  and  perhaps  espe- 
cially those  things  at  which  our  own  moral  sense  and 
self-respect  most  revolt,  where  qualms  of  conscience 
would  be  so  painful  that  we  refuse  to  face  them.  And 
this  is  connected  with  the  fact  that  in  those  churches  that 
stress  a  radical  change  of  heart,  with  deep  conviction 
of  sin,  conversions  of  the  old  are  very  rare.  Martial x 
says  of  the  fortunate  old  Antonius  viewing  the  years 
behind : 

Back  on  their  flight  he  looks  and  feels  no  dread 
To  think  that  Lethe's  waters  flow  so  near. 
There  is  no  day  of  all  the  train  that  gives 
A  pang;  no  moment  that  he  would  forget. 
A  good  man's  span  is  doubled ;  twice  he  lives 
Who,  viewing  his  past  life,  enjoys  it  yet. 

All,  of  course,  want  to  do  just  this,  so  that  "the  good 

1  Book  X,  Epigram  23  D. 

331 


SENESCENCE 

men  do"  may  live  "after  them,"  while  "the  bad  is  in- 
terred with  their  bones." 

Edgar  Lee  Masters,  in  a  little  volume  of  clever  poetic 
skits,2  describes  the  dead  in  a  country  churchyard  as  sit- 
ting up,  one  after  another,  in  their  graves  and  belying 
their  epitaphs.  One  says  in  substance,  "They  called  me 
good  and  pure  but  I  was  a  villain";  another,  "They 
called  me  philanthropic  and  generous  but  I  ground  the 
faces  of  the  poor  and  all  my  charities  were  to  camouflage 
my  selfishness  and  extortion" ;  and  so  on  through  a  long 
list  of  rectifications,  showing  that  while  men  generally 
follow  the  precept  of  saying  nothing  but  good  of  the  dead 
there  may  be,  after  all,  at  the  bottom  of  the  soul  a  certain 
impulse  to  have  all  the  worst  in  us  known.  But  this 
is  not  true  of  modern  life,  if  it  ever  was  so  in  the  past. 

Some  of  our  respondents  specified  temptations  to 
overeat,  to  under-exercise,  to  take  life  too  easy  or  to 
be  too  tardy  in  throwing  off  responsibilities,  to  read  or 
think  too  much,  to  be  censorious  and  intolerant,  irritable, 
to  resent  the  cocky  infallibility  of  the  young,  the  exces- 
sive urge  to  speed  up,  the  danger  of  getting  cranky,  of 
brooding;  and  a  few  speak  vaguely  of  temptations  of 
the  flesh.  Nearly  all  say  that  they  are  less  prone  to 
yield  to  temptations  than  in  middle  life. 

It  is  perhaps  from  this  standpoint  that  we  see  most 
clearly  the  danger  to  which  the  old  are  subjected  in  the 
progressive  loss  of  self-knowledge.  It  is  very  hard  for 
any  but  the  strongest  mentalities  to  realize  the  changes 
that  age  brings,  to  adjust  to,  feel  at  home  in,  and  come 
to  terms  consciously  with  it,  so  that  most  would  prob- 
ably be  surprised  if  they  knew  how  clearly  those  closest 
to  them  understood  their  weaknesses,  tolerated  their 
idiosyncrasies,  and  made  allowances  for  their  failures. 
Self-control,  poise,  a  calm,  judicial  state  of  mind  even 

'Spoon  River  Anthology. 

332 


QUESTIONNAIRE  RETURNS 

with  regard  to  things  that  concern  us  most  deeply,  are 
among  the  chief,  if  also  among  the  rarest,  virtues  of 
senescence.  Everyone  carries  with  him  to  the  grave 
many  a  secret  that  it  is  well  for  him  and  for  the  world 
is  buried  with  him;  and  the  impulse  to  be  known  even 
by  God  Himself  exactly  as  we  are,  although  it  has  so 
many  expressions  in  prayers  and  religious  formulae, 
lacks  in  our  day,  we  must  conclude,  any  real  depth  of 
sincerity. 

What  duties  do  you  feel  that  you  still  owe  either  to 
those  about  you  or  to  the  world? 

Some  place  first  the  duty  of  providing  wisely  and  well 
for  their  families  and  friends  after  their  death.  A  few 
are  oppressed  by  the  thought  that  they  still  owe  the 
world  far  more  than  they  can  pay,  although  one  who 
has  lived  a  life  of  very  large  usefulness  thinks  the  world 
owes  him  now  far  more  than  he  owes  it.  Some  have  a 
dread  amounting  almost  to  horror  of  being  useless  and 
wish,  above  all  things,  to  be  not  a  burden  but  serviceable. 
A  few  feel  the  same  old  duties,  with  no  change.  Others 
feel  called  to  give  to  the  world,  or  at  least  to  those  about 
them,  advice  and  admonition  based  upon  the  rich  lessons 
of  experience.  Some  who  have  been  lifelong  slaves  to 
duty  resolve  that  they  will  now  emancipate  themselves 
and  live  henceforth  according  to  their  own  pleasure. 
Some  feel  that  their  time  and  strength  for  doing  good 
have  so  abated  that  it  is  vain  to  try  to  accomplish  any- 
thing more  and  that  they  must  devote  themselves  to 
being,  instead  of  doing,  good,  and  would  thus  cultivate 
every  grace  of  character  and  let  their  light  so  shine  as 
to  be  examples  to  others,  so  that  self-development  must 
henceforth  be  their  chief  effort. 

In  such  answers  as  are  before  me  two  things  stand 
out  with  special  prominence.  The  first  is  that  the  men 
of  science,  who  constitute  about  one-third  of  all,  have 

333 


SENESCENCE 

unfinished  studies,  which  they  feel  it  is  their  supreme 
duty  to  complete  before  their  powers  abate.  It  is  less 
often  new  themes  to  which  they  would  consecrate  their 
energies  than  old  ones  on  which  already  very  much  work 
has  been  done  and  that  they  rightly  feel  no  one  else 
could  properly  finish  and  that  would  thus  be  lost  to  the 
world  unless  they  themselves  were  able  to  complete  it. 
These  men  are  less  intent  upon  public  reforms  or  special 
civic  duties  than  upon  adding  at  least  a  tiny  stone  to 
the  great  temple  of  science,  although  only  a  few  in  their 
own  specialty  will  ever  appreciate  or  be  benefited  by 
their  work.  The  world  has  certainly  lost  much,  although 
probably  less  than  those  concerned  think,  by  the  death 
or  the  incapacitating  senility  of  savants  who  left  an 
unfinished  window  in  their  Aladdin  tower.  We  all  think 
of  great  novels,  which  the  authors  did  not  live  to  com- 
plete; of  promising,  intricate  researches,  which  were 
perhaps  bungled  by  the  imperfect  reports  of  the  half- 
competent  who  undertook  to  present  them  to  the  world ; 
of  papers  left  by  the  old  to  be  edited  by  their  children 
or  their  advanced  students,  some  of  which  had  better 
have  remained  untouched;  of  belabored  manuscripts, 
which  survivors  can  make  nothing  of  and  which  are 
perhaps  piously  preserved  for  years  and  eventually  con- 
signed to  the  flames.  It  is  such  fates  for  the  children 
of  their  brain  that  some  of  our  respondents  seem  to 
dread  chiefly  and  it  is  this  that  prompts  them  to  dreams, 
which  are  generally  fatuous,  of  literary  executors  or 
post-mortem  publications. 

The  most  general  conclusion  from  these  data  is  that 
the  old  are  very  prone  to  develop,  if  they  have  not  had 
it  before,  a  kind  of  educational  instinct  in  the  larger 
sense  of  this  word;  they  wish  to  admonish  or  exhort, 
if  not  the  world  at  least  some  section  of  it,  to  better 
and  wiser  living,  to  the  acquisition  of  the  knowledge 
that  is  of  most  worth,  to  the  cultivation  of  peace  and 

334 


QUESTIONNAIRE  RETURNS 

amity,  or  to  a  simple  and  perhaps  more  strenuous  and 
efficient  life  and  to  the  development  of  good  habits.  The 
lessons  they  would  teach  often  impress  the  young  as 
being  trite  and  commonplace,  but  if  they  are  so,  they 
are  charged  with  a  depth  of  conviction  and  enriched  by 
a  wealth  of  experience  that  give  them  a  greater  sig- 
nificance than  the  young  can  appreciate. 

Is  your  interest  in  public,  community,  or  in  far  future 
or  past  things,  as  compared  with  interest  in  persons  and 
things  right  about  you,  greater  or  less  than  formerly ? 

Here  we  have  two  very  distinctly  opposite  tendencies. 
On  the  one  hand,  more  frequently  in  women  than  men 
and  much  more  common  in  the  uneducated  classes,  the 
horizon  of  interest  tends  to  narrow  to  the  immediate 
environment  and  to  the  here  and  now  of  each  day  and 
if  health  is  impaired,  the  chief  concern  may  be  personal 
well-  or  ill-being,  in  which  case  we  see  the  egoism  and 
selfishness  of  old  age  in  its  extreme  form.  On  the  other 
hand,  and  as  we  would  fain  believe  more  normally,  we 
have  an  increase  of  breadth  of  view  and  of  interest  not 
only  in  local  affairs  of  the  community  but  of  the  state, 
country,  world,  and  humanity,  which  may  be  intensified 
as  decline  necessitates  withdrawal  from  more  active 
participation  in  affairs  nearest  in  time  and  place.  Two 
great  events  have  had  an  incalculable  influence  in  this 
direction  that  often  appears  in  our  data.  The  one  is 
the  World  War,  the  new  era  of  history  it  has  opened, 
and  the  whole  problem  of  the  future  fate  of  civilization. 
This  has  made  a  tremendous  appeal  to  those  of  con- 
templative habits  and  has  stimulated  them  to  follow  the 
course  of  world  events,  to  study  the  past  and  peer  into 
the  future  as  never  before,  as  well  as  to  want  to  live 
on  to  see  the  next  act  in  the  great  drama.  Suffrage 
and  the  new  enfranchisement  of  woman  have  marked  a 
great  increase  in  public  life  and  opened  new  spheres 

335 


SENESCENCE 

of  influence  for  her  sex  in  political,  civic,  and  moral 
fields  that  are  proving  so  absorbing  that  the  former  ten- 
dency which  advanced  years  brought — to  focus  on  per- 
sons at  closer  range  and  on  narrower  human  relations — 
is  superseded  by  a  new  and  larger  humanism.  Not  only 
have  these  tendencies  greatly  enriched  old  age  but  there 
is  no  reason  to  think  they  will  ever  be  transcended  or 
reversed.  In  this  sense  there  has  been  no  age  in  the 
world  in  which  it  was  so  good  to  be  old  and  the  last 
decade  or  two  have  contributed  far  more  than  any  other 
to  give  old  people  a  stronger  hold  on  life  and  to  bring 
it  more  of  just  the  kind  of  culture  needed  for  its 
legitimate  development,  as  well  as  to  very  greatly 
strengthen  the  will  to  live. 

In  what  do  you  now  take  your  greatest  pleasure? 

While  a  few  find  it  only  in  the  same  sources  as  before 
old  age  supervened,  most  have  discovered  new  sources 
of  satisfaction  or  at  least  find  joy  in  more  abandonment 
to  inclinations  that  had  to  be  more  or  less  sidetracked 
or  almost  tabooed  before.  Reading  is  most  often  speci- 
fied. A  few  who  used  to  read  novels  voraciously  have 
lost  all  interest  in  love  stories  and  turned  to  biographies, 
which  they  now  pursue  with  almost  the  same  zest  as 
they  formerly  felt  for  romance.  A  few  turn  to  history 
in  general  or  perhaps  trace  the  earlier  stages  of  the  de- 
velopment of  their  own  field  of  work.  Several  find  a 
great  resource  in  meditation  or  even  reverie,  giving  more 
time  to  day-dreaming  than  before.  A  very  few  feel  a 
new  urge  to  give  some  message  to  the  world  before  they 
die,  and  perhaps  try,  with  or  without  success,  to  write 
for  publication,  while  some  do  so  merely  for  their  own 
edification.  Two  old  professors  who  have  taught  suc- 
cessfully all  their  lives,  on  ceasing  to  do  so  were  im- 
pelled to  address  a  larger  public  by  print  and  were 
dismayed  to  find  their  efforts  unsuccessful.  Others  con- 

336 


QUESTIONNAIRE  RETURNS 

fess  to  a  loss  of  ambition  to  do  anything  to  better  the 
world  but  would  confine  their  efforts  to  making  those 
about  them  wiser  or  happier.  Many  find  a  new  charm 
in  nature,  for  example,  walks  in  the  open,  gardening, 
birds,  stars,  celestial  phenomena,  or  perhaps  reading  the 
works  of  naturalists  and  out-of-door  observers  of 
animals,  flowers,  plants,  trees;  while  others,  like  Soc- 
rates, prefer  human  relations  and  indulge  more  freely 
than  before  in  companionships,  correspondence,  or  per- 
haps things  that  absorb  them  in  their  immediate  environ- 
ment, or  in  a  wider  rapport  with  current  events,  and  give 
more  time  to  newspapers,  etc.  It  is  not  uncommon  for 
cultivated  old  people  to  reread  the  classic  standard  litera- 
ture they  perused  in  their  youth  and  sometimes  to  aban- 
don themselves  to  the  study  of  the  best  things  in  ancient 
literature,  which  they  had  only  known  before  by  name 
and  always  felt  inclined  but  never  had  time  to  indulge 
in,  feeling  perhaps  that  they  are  thus  tardily  making  up 
for  lost  time.  Only  a  few  specify  greater  keenness  of 
aesthetic  enjoyment  for  works  of  art,  music,  drama, 
etc.  Men  very  rarely,  and  women  somewhat  more  fre- 
quently, confess  to  taking  greater  pleasure  in  dress,  so 
that  while  we  only  seldom  find  dandified  old  men  who 
affect  the  fashions  and  dress  of  youth,  women  not  infre- 
quently feel  that  as  their  personal  charms  decline  they 
must  compensate  by  richness  of  attire,  jewels,  and  per- 
haps lavish  ornamentation,  coiffure,  etc.  One  old  lady 
in  the  eighties  regretted  bitterly  that  lavender  was  the 
only  color  in  which  she  could  now  dress  without 
criticism.  Perhaps  excess  in  this  direction  is,  on  the 
whole,  more  pleasing  than  the  growing  neglect  of  these 
things  with  years,  which  is  so  much  more  common. 

Of  the  three  muses,  solitude,  society,  and  nature, 
while  all  have  a  new  if  not  stronger  attraction  it  is  the 
first  that,  from  our  returns,  would  seem  to  increase  most 
with  age.  Deafness,  or  perhaps  impatience  with  the 

337 


SENESCENCE 

overactivities  of  the  young,  may  weaken  the  social  bonds 
and  physical  infirmity  may  limit  contact  with  nature  but 
nearly  all  our  respondents  seek  and  find  solace  in  them- 
selves more  than  before.  We  find  few  old  people  who, 
like  many  younger  ones,  have  a  horror  of  being  alone. 
Several  have  daily  periods  of  retreat  or  retirement  when 
they  are  "at  home"  only  to  themselves,  perhaps  to  digest 
what  they  have  lately  read  or  to  adjust  with  more 
equanimity  to  changes  within  or  without.  Thus  the  old 
generally  find  resources  within  themselves  that  more  or 
less  compensate  for  their  growing  isolation,  although 
some  reproach  themselves  or  others  that  they  find  these 
resources  too  meager.  One  old  philosopher  says  in  sub- 
stance that,  realizing  that  he  must  sometime  meet  death 
absolutely  alone  and  reach  a  point  where  he  must  take 
final  leave  of  all  and  everything  about  him,  he  feels  that 
he  must  strengthen  his  soul  by  practising  for  the  most 
solitary  of  all  experiences.  Thus  there  is  a  certain  her- 
mit or  recluse  motive,  which  of  old  sent  so  many  aging 
persons  into  the  desert,  wilderness,  mountains,  etc.,  a 
motif  that  may  possibly  have  received  some  psycho- 
genetic  reinforcement  from  the  dangers  of  ill-treatment 
by  their  fellows  to  which  in  cruder  stages  of  life  the 
old  were  exposed.  It  is  entirely  impossible  for  youth 
to  fully  sympathize  with  age  because  this  would  mean 
nothing  less  than  to  anticipate  it,  and  so  the  aged  often 
feel,  deep  in  their  souls,  that  there  is  a  slight  falsetto 
or  conventional  note,  even  in  the  greatest  consideration 
shown  to  them.  This  condition,  in  morbid  cases,  may 
amount  to  suspicions  of  insincerity  or  a  sense  that  kind- 
ness masks  the  opposite  feeling.  Happily,  however, 
most  of  the  aged  do  not  seem  to  suffer  acutely  from  this 
feeling  but  accept  what  is  done  for  them  at  its  full  face 
value. 

Nature,  on  the  other  hand,  is  probably  at  no  stage 
of  life  felt  to  be  so  motherly,  so  sympathetic,  or  so  full 

338 


QUESTIONNAIRE  RETURNS 

of  moral  meanings.  Quite  apart  from  the  nature  that 
science  teaches  us,  the  old  seem  to  feel  a  recrudescence 
of  the  old  anthropomorphic  feeling  that  once  made  the 
nature-myths  and  has  inspired  so  many  of  the  parables, 
similes,  tropes,  and  what  are  now  called  anagogic  inter- 
pretations, by  which  man  has  read  into  nature's  phe- 
nomena the  experiences  of  his  own  life.  The  old  man 
feels  in  a  new  way  that  not  only  all  bibles  but  humanity 
itself  came  straight  out  of  the  heart  of  nature,  so  that 
contemplation  of  her  various  aspects  may  become  for 
him  again  a  kind  of  navel-gazing.  He  sometimes  be- 
comes an  annotator  of  weather  and  temperature,  to 
which  he  has  a  new  susceptibility,  and  feels  a  new  kin- 
ship not  only  with  the  sun,  storm,  forest,  mountain, 
shore  and  sea,  but  even  with  celestial  phenomena.  He 
welcomes  the  advent  of  spring  with  a  trace  of  the  old 
jubilance  once  expressed  in  many  vernal  festivals ;  feels 
and  is  perhaps  depressed  by  the  analogy  between  his 
period  of  life  and  winter;  often  indulges  the  hope  that 
he  may  die  in  his  favorite  season  and  not  be  buried  when 
the  world  is  ice-bound;  and  is  in  the  closest  rapport 
with  climate  and  often  makes  much  sacrifice  to  live  in 
one  he  has  found  most  favorable.  In  general,  he  is 
responsive,  probably  far  more  deeply  even  than  he  real- 
izes, to  all  the  moods  and  tenses  in  which  nature  ex- 
presses herself.  Perhaps  his  very  wakefulness  gives  him 
a  new  rapport  with  the  night  through  all  its  watches. 

The  old  who  have  access  to  the  country  often  select 
favorite  and  generally  retired  nooks  where  they  can  sit 
for  hours  and  be  alone  with  nature  and  thus  entertain 
their  souls.  One  old  man  who  did  this  habitually  every 
summer  in  a  spot  in  what  he  called  his  coign  of  vantage 
told  me  that  at  each  successive  year,  on  revisiting  this 
spot,  he  was  conscious  of  some  deep  change,  of  a  certain 
new  sense  of  closeness  to  nature's  heart,  which,  although 
he  could  not  define  it,  seemed  to  mark  a  new  step  in 

339 


SENESCENCE 

his  development  and  which  he  thought  somehow  norma- 
tive for  his  whole  life  during  the  year,  for  he  often 
went  to  sleep  thinking  of  the  charm  of  this  place,  etc. 
The  psychology  of  solitude,  both  chosen  and  enforced, 
shows  that  it  often  brings  an  almost  rapturous  delight 
in  the  contemplation  of  some  simple  object  of  nature — 
a  flower,  shrub,  insect  or  tiny  animal,  which  causes  for 
a  moment  a  kind  of  temporary  focalization  that  gives 
it  something  of  a  fetishistic  power.  All  this,  however, 
does  not  lessen  but  perhaps  rather  augments,  by  the  law 
of  change  and  alternation,  the  growing  charm  that  hu- 
manity in  the  large  sense  always  has  for  old  people  who 
conserve  their  faculties.  The  sphinx  riddle,  what  is  man 
and  what  is  the  worth  and  meaning  of  all  his  strivings, 
never  fails  to  come  over  the  matured  mind,  despite  the 
fact  that  it  is  the  most  baffling  and  insoluble  of  all  prob- 
lems, for  "age  brings  a  philosophic  mind"  and  with  it 
comes  a  new  realization  that  the  greatest  study  of  man- 
kind is  man. 

Do  you  enjoy  the  society  of  children,  of  young  people, 
adults,  or  those  near  your  own  age  more  or  less  than 
formerly? 

Responses  here  differed  very  widely  but  certain  com- 
mon traits  appear.  Those  who  grow  deaf  are  often 
condemned  to  a  progressive  solitude  and  this  affliction 
has  a  pathos  of  its  own.  The  friends  we  knew  in  youth 
and  college  are  scattered  and  most  of  them,  and  perhaps 
most  members  of  our  own  family,  are  dead,  so  that 
associates  of  our  own  age  are  generally  very  few.  But 
besides  this  the  old  often  develop  idiosyncrasies  highly 
distasteful  to  others  and  we  find  complaints  of  the  stu- 
pidity or  querulousness  of  other  old  people.  Despite  the 
fact  that  we  have  occasional  instances  of  intimate  friend- 
ships in  the  latest  decades  of  life,  the  herd  instinct  that 
prompts  each  to  flock  with  those  of  near  his  or  her  own 

340 


QUESTIONNAIRE  RETURNS 

years  is  less  insistent,  while  with  happily  married  pairs 
even  love  seems  to  take  on  the  character  of  friendship. 
There  is,  indeed,  no  doubt  that  the  gregarious  instinct 
tends  to  wane,  and  as  men  advance  in  years  they  tend 
to  withdraw  from  clubs  and  associations,  not  only  be- 
cause of  infirmities  but  because  increased  individuation 
is  itself  isolative.  On  the  other  hand,  I  think  we  detect, 
not  only  in  these  returns  but  in  life,  a  tendency  to  prefer 
associates  of  the  next  generation,  that  is,  those  of  such 
an  age  that  they  might  have  been  our  own  children. 
Some  old  men  especially  state  that  they  prefer  the  society 
of  men  of  middle  life  and  it  has  often  been  thought  that 
young  teachers  are  best  for  young  and  older  teachers 
for  older  children  and  that  the  young  have  a  certain 
attraction  for  those  near  the  age  limits  of  their  parents. 
A  few  of  the  very  old  like  children,  but  often  with 
reservations  or  best  at  a  distance,  and  are  prone  to  be 
annoyed  by  their  noise  or  too  great  familiarity.  It  is 
pretty  clear  that  age  does  incline  to  youth  and  perhaps 
becomes  dependent  on  it  for  a  kind  of  vicarious  reju- 
venation. Old  professors  often  feel  in  a  peculiarly  close 
rapport  with  those  of  student  years  but  this  is  partly 
due  to  habit.  The  old  sometimes  take,  with  peculiar 
interest,  to  pets  and  not  infrequently  have  strong  likes 
and  dislikes,  which  they  can  only  explain  on  the  basis 
of  congeniality  or  antipathy. 

There  can  be  no  question  that  old  people  to-day  are 
just  as  fond  of  acting  as  mentors  for  the  young  as  they 
were  in  ancient  Greece,  although  now  it  takes  the  very 
different  form  of  a  propensity  to  give  advice  and  warn- 
ings. But  our  civilization  has  not  yet  found  effective 
ways  of  making  even  god-fathers  and  -mothers  really 
sponsors  or  assistant  parents,  although  the  teaching  in- 
stinct is  closely  allied  to  the  parental  and  is  more  or  less 
developed  in  all.  It  is  the  testimony  of  those  familiar 
with  old  people's  homes  that  their  inmates  do  not  tend 

341 


SENESCENCE 

to  fraternize  and  although  crony  friendships  are  not 
infrequent,  there  is  no  analogy  to  "mashes"  or  "crushes." 
Indeed,  pessimists  have  often  intimated  that  no  one 
could  really  love  very  old  people  and  so  far  as  this  is 
true  we  could  hardly  expect  them  to  love  even  each 
other  in  return. 

The  above  applies  more  to  men  than  women  and  the 
case  seems  quite  different  with  the  latter,  who  are  much 
more  prone  to  be  interested  in  the  young,  even  in  the 
very  young,  than  are  old  men.  The  grandmother  may 
lavish  too  much,  while  the  grandfather  gives  too  little, 
attention  to  the  grandchildren.  On  the  other  hand,  both 
are  often  very  critical  of  the  larger  liberties  allowed  to 
and  taken  by  children  and  find  it  hard  to  adjust  to  new 
notions  and  social  customs  and  especially  to  the  now 
rapidly  increasing  license  given  to  both  their  conversa- 
tion and  conduct,  which  can  hardly  be  said,  in  its  turn, 
to  involve  greater  respect  for  age  than  formerly. 

Would  you  live  your  life  over  again? 

All  answered  this  question,  but  three  could  not  decide. 
One  had  found  it  all  so  enjoyable  that  he  would  gladly 
start  over  again  and  repeat  all  identically.  One  recoiled 
"with  horror"  at  the  thought  and  rejoiced  every  week 
that  it  was  ended  forever.  Even  the  pleasant  experiences 
had  such  an  alloy  or  aftermath  of  pain  that  one  subject 
could  not  bear  the  thought  of  repeating  a  moment  of  it. 

"What  is  the  use?"  said  another.  "I  would  probably 
do  the  same  thing  over  again."  Some  would  live  parts 
of  their  lives  again  or  begin  at  a  certain  stage.  Most 
would  repeat  it  if  they  could  start  with  some  of  their 
present  knowledge  or  experience  and  thus  improve  upon 
what  they  had  been  or  done.  Most,  too,  had  such  a 
sense  of  progress  that  it  would  seem  painful  to  them 
to  go  back  to  more  primitive  conditions.  Two  felt  so 
assured  of  progress  beyond  the  grave  that  the  future 

342 


QUESTIONNAIRE  RETURNS 

drew  them  more  than  the  past.  One  did  not  see  how 
his  life  could  be  materially  improved  for  he  had  fallen 
victim  to  no  temptations,  made  very  few  mistakes,  etc. ; 
while  many  specified  often  radical  changes  they  would 
make,  errors  or  mistakes  they  would  avoid,  etc.  There 
were  no  expressions  of  remorse;  no  bitter  imprecations 
of  fate,  heredity,  or  nature;  no  vain  longings  for  reju- 
venation ;  and  these  data  suggest  that  the  vivid  pleasures 
of  childhood,  the  joys  of  youth,  and  the  intoxication  with 
life  that  characterizes  its  immature  stages  had  vanished 
and  left  no  trace  in  the  memory  of  these  respondents, 
or  perhaps  that  life  had  palled  and  brought  a  certain 
satiety.  One  said: 

I  have  lived  three  more  or  less  independent  lives,  as  naturalist 
and  explorer  for  the  love  of  it,  as  science  teacher  for  the  love 
of  it,  and  as  administrator  because  I  knew  men  and  the  value 
of  money;  and  finally,  as  a  matter  of  duty,  as  a  minor  prophet 
of  democracy.  If  I  had  the  chance  I  would  take  them  all  again. 
There  is  pleasure  in  it  and  the  world  badly  needs  men  willing 
to  be  counted  in  the  minority. 

In  the  attitude  of  these  old  people  to  this  problem  the 
psychologist  can  glimpse  a  little  of  the  tedium  vitce  that 
perhaps  first  produced  and  then  discarded  the  Oriental 
doctrine  of  eternal  recurrence  of  life  and  death,  a  psychic 
trend  that  gave  birth  to  and  vitalized  metempsychosis 
and  that  impelled  the  Buddha  to  break  away  and  find 
a  goal  beyond  it.  It  needs  little  psychology  to  see  that 
such  attitudes  of  mind  imply  a  deep  dissatisfaction  with 
any  form  of  future  existence  that  would  be  in  essence 
a  repetition  of  life  here,  even  with  moderate  improve- 
ments on  our  present  state  of  existence.  A  postmortem 
form  of  survival  or  revival  that  is,  in  any  large  sense, 
a  reduplication  of  this  could  never  bring  a  deep  satis- 
faction. All  ancient  creeds  and  all  modern  philosophies 
of  recurrence,  for  example,  that  of  Nietzsche,  have  al- 

343 


SENESCENCE 

ways  been  strongholds  of  pessimism  and  are  really  anti- 
evolutionary,  although  they  are  sometimes  said  to 
presage  modern  theories  of  development. 

To  the  genetic  philosopher  it  would  seem,  from  such 
data,  that  senescents  tend  to  lose  the  sense  that  infancy 
and  childhood  are  more  generic  than  adulthood,  that  the 
latter  brings  the  "shades  of  the  prisonhouse,"  and  that 
every  stage  of  individual  development  brings  added 
limitations,  so  that  our  matured  consciousness  is  only  a 
very  partial  expression  of  the  vaster  life  of  the  race, 
most  of  which  is  more  and  more  repressed  and  incapable 
of  coming  to  consciousness  as  life  proceeds.  If  each  of 
us  might  have  lived  very  different  lives  from  what  we 
have  done,  and  if  many  and  varied  lives  are  required 
to  express  all  the  possibilities  with  which  we  all  start, 
it  would  seem  as  if  each  individual  would  have  chosen, 
when  he  had  played  one  part,  to  assume  another  in  the 
comedie  humaine  and  then  another,  and  so  on ;  that  the 
slave  would  want  to  complement  his  defects  of  oppor- 
tunity by  becoming  king — if  not,  indeed,  vice  versa. 
When  the  psychic  life  of  the  race  was  young  and  rank, 
great  minds  did  dream  even  of  living  out  every  phase 
and  stage  of  life:  of  being  animals,  of  experiencing 
every  lot  and  station  of  humanity.  But  now  that  the 
world  is  older  and  the  hyperindividuation  that  comes 
with  age  has  supervened,  this  passion  to  taste  everything 
possible  to  our  estate  is  lost.  Instead  of  sampling  every 
dish  we  make  a  full  meal  of  one  and  other  viands  are 
refused  for  we  are  sated.  Biology  teaches,  as  we  have 
seen,  that  specialization  is  death  and  a  hypertrophied 
personal  consciousness  is  psychic  specialization. 

For  myself,  I  confess  I  even  retain  in  old  age  some 
vestige  of  my  strong  childish  desire  to  be  a  horse,  lion, 
ape,  dog,  fish,  and  even  insect;  or,  in  a  word,  to  know 
how  the  world  looks  from  under  the  skull  of  our  older 
brothers,  the  beasts.  Still  stronger  is  the  wish  to  have 

344 


QUESTIONNAIRE  RETURNS 

lived  as  a  troglodyte,  Indian,  to  have  been  a  fire-wor- 
shiper, totemist,  a  woman,  millionaire,  tramp,  or  even 
a  moron  or  a  genius — if  not,  in  some  moods,  to  have 
experienced  various  insanities  and  even  diseases.  But 
strangest  of  all  is  the  wish  that  I  could  be  set  back  to 
happy  childhood,  even  if  it  had  to  be  with  the  smallest 
modicum  of  the  experience  I  have  acquired,  and  try  the 
game  of  life  again.  It  has  been,  on  the  whole,  so  for- 
tunate that  I  would  even  repeat  it  identically,  if  I  ha'd 
to,  rather  than  to  face  the  future  I  do.  But  the  chief 
charm  would  be  not  so  much  to  improve  it  and  avoid 
errors  but  to  vary  it  and  give  my  more  generic  self  a 
less  one-sided  expression  so  as  to  bring  out  latencies 
that  are  suppressed  or  slumber  and  to  invest  the  same 
old  self  with  a  new  set  of  attributes.  I  have  only  seen 
one  very  small  aspect  of  life  and  know  but  a  single 
corner  of  my  own  soul  and  my  knowledge  of  the  world 
is  too  limited  to  my  own  narrow  specialty.  The  future 
not  only  of  my  department  but  of  all  lines  of  human 
activity  is  so  full  of  possibilities  yet  unrealized  but  which 
have  aroused  such  eagerness  of  interest,  that  I  would 
accept  another  life  here  under  almost  any  terms  in  order 
to  see  the  swelling  drama  unfold;  while  I  revolt  un- 
speakably at  the  realization  that  I  must  be  cut  off  when 
so  many  things  in  which  I  have  the  keenest  zest  are  in 
the  most  critical  or  interesting  phase  of  their  develop- 
ment. 

Of  course  I  am  answering  my  question  in  a  different 
sense  than  that  understood  by  most  of  my  correspond- 
ents. In  fact,  in  a  way  it  was  an  idle  and  perhaps 
foolish  question,  because  to  exactly  relive  a  present  life 
is  so  impossible  that  it  is  hardly  conceivable.  But  let  us 
oldsters  realize  that  if  we  are  sated,  it  is  because  our 
appetite  has  flagged  and  not  because  viands  are  scantier 
or  less  toothsome.  Perhaps  we  all  wish  we  had  been 
born  later  so  that  we  should  be  now  in  our  prime.  Most 

345 


SENESCENCE 

of  us  would  probably  have  sacrificed  a  few  of  the  earlier, 
if  by  so  doing  we  could  add  a  few  more  to  the  later, 
years  of  our  life.  Perhaps  the  very  restlessness  of  old 
people,  their  retirement  from  activity,  their  propensity 
to  a  change  of  scene  or  mode  of  life,  or  their  not  infre- 
quent Wanderlust,  is  the  result  of  a  blind  instinct  to 
exploit  unused  and  submerged  faculties  and  thus  to  com- 
plement or  vicariate  for  the  loss  of  certain  possibilities 
always  involved  in  realizing  other  careers.  Certain  it 
is  that  even  those  who  do  not  make  a  clean  break  with 
their  past  develop  views,  interests,  habits,  modes  of  life, 
personal  associations,  or  perhaps  take  pleasure  in  be- 
coming novices,  apprentices,  or  amateurs,  in  new  fields 
and  find  thus  a  certain  rejuvenation,  the  strong  instinct 
for  which  has  found  so  many  unworthy  forms  of  ex- 
pression that  the  term  "second  childhood"  as  applied 
to  age  is  commonly  one  of  reproach  and  the  affectations 
of  youth  by  the  old  are  ridiculous.  We  all  tend  to  live 
our  lives  over  again  in  our  children  and  grandchildren 
and  this  impulse  is  another  expression  of  the  deep  in- 
stinct for  renewal  and  living  other  lives  again.  How 
shall  we  explain,  too,  the  so  common  inclination  of  the 
old  to  plant  trees  they  will  never  see  mature  or  build 
houses  they  can  hope  to  live  in  only  a  short  time;  or 
to  get  into  and  keep  in  such  sympathetic  rapport  with 
the  young;  to  engage  in  works  of  charity;  or  to  grow 
tolerant  of  errors,  of  persons,  and  of  opinions  they  once 
bitterly  opposed.  What  can  all  these  phenomena  mean 
save  that  the  barriers  of  egoism  are  falling  down  and 
that  we  tend  to  live  more  and  more  not  only  for  but 
in  others  by  a  kind  of  sympathetic  identification  with 
them.  Three  of  my  correspondents  had  a  period  of 
reorienting  themselves  to  new  interests  as  if  to  find 
themselves  again,  which  is  suggestive  of  the  period  in 
youth  when  one  vocation  after  another  is  taken  up  and 
abandoned  before  a  fit  life  purpose  has  been  found. 

346 


QUESTIONNAIRE  RETURNS 

Whether  these  tentatives  in  the  old  were  a  recrudescence 
of  a  series  of  earlier  circummutations,  like  those  of  a 
climbing  vine  seeking  a  fit  support,  our  data  do  not  show. 

Did  you  experience  an  "Indian  summer"  of  revived 
energy  before  the  winter  of  age  began  to  set  in? 

Only  five  responses  were  affirmative  to  this  question. 
One  of  the  most  eminent  men  of  science  with  a  world- 
wide reputation  reported,  at  seventy-two,  that  he  had 
never  worked  so  effectively  and  was  now  engaged  on  a, 
program  that  would  require  from  ten  to  twenty  years 
of  strenuous  activity  for  its  completion,  besides  answer- 
ing several  scores  of  letters  daily.  Another  scarcely  less 
eminent,  at  the  age  of  seventy-three,  had  lately  under- 
taken an  arduous  line  of  investigation  that  would  "re- 
quire many  years  to  complete"  but  was  confident  that 
he  could  finish  it,  for  "a  task  is  a  life-preserver."  My 
returns  suggest  that  men  engaged  in  scientific  research 
have  more  power  to  "carry  on"  than  any  other  class 
and  that  those  engaged  in  the  professions  are  perhaps 
least  likely  to  do  so  when  they  cease  active  practice. 
Several  specify  greater  mental  clarity  in  seeing  through 
delusions,  shams,  and  vanities.  Others  feel  a  certain 
exaltation  at  times,  dependent  perhaps  upon  digestion 
or  the  weather.  Others  specify  new  and  deeper  self- 
knowledge.  Others  find  much  satisfaction  in  the  set- 
tling of  a  few  fixed  and  cardinal  ideas  or  convictions. 
A  few  feel  new  ambitions  to  begin  new  enterprises. 
Several  found  in  the  war  and  its  results  a  mental 
stimulus  that  they  felt  to  be  rejuvenating  and  longed 
and  believed  that  they  must  live  on  to  see  the  settlement 
of  some  of  the  great  questions  now  so  wide  open.  Four 
had  observed  such  awakenings  in  others.  Most,  how- 
ever, felt  themselves  going  on  about  as  before,  with  no 
change  save  gradual  abatement  of  energy.  Some  felt 
as  strong  physically  and  mentally  as  ever  until  they  set 

347 


SENESCENCE 

themselves  to  some  serious  task  and  then  realized  that 
this  feeling  was  illusory.  Others  were  sure  they  would 
have  felt  a  revival  of  springtide  but  for  some  infirmity 
or  disaster.  It  is,  however,  hard  for  others  to  judge 
on  this  matter  and  harder  perhaps  for  the  individual  to 
answer  the  question  for  himself. 

The  remission  of  responsibilities  and  the  dropping  of 
burdens  would  of  itself  give  a  certain  sense  of  exalta- 
tion, because  all  such  changes  involve  a  new  balance  be- 
tween ambitions  and  accomplishments.  Retired  clergymen 
often  feel  a  great  relief  from  being  no  longer  accountable 
to  others  for  their  opinions  and  some  often  find  a  joyful 
sense  of  emancipation  from  old  doctrines  surprising,  not 
only  to  others  but  most  of  all  to  themselves.  One  writes, 
"I  found,  on  sober  second  thought,  I  no  longer  really 
believed  certain  dogmas  I  had  preached  all  my  life  and 
that  in  my  inmost  heart  I  really  believed  certain  things 
I  had  often  condemned  as  heresies."  He  found  an  in- 
tense mental  stimulus  in  thus  reconstructing  his  own 
creed.  A  clergyman  of  seventy-nine  once  told  me  he 
had  ceased  to  preach,  even  as  a  supply,  because  since  his 
resignation  his  new  views  gave  offense.  Old  physicians, 
too,  sometimes,  though  far  more  rarely  and  to  a  less 
extent,  drop  as  illusions  certain  fundamental  principles 
by  which  the  practice  of  a  lifetime  had  been  regulated. 

Again,  the  new  lines  of  interest  to  which  the  old,  set 
free  from  the  tasks  of  their  lives,  sometimes  turn  show 
that  there  is  a  half-delusive  and  half-real  sense  of 
psychic  rejuvenation  associated  with  the  pursuit  of  a 
new  topic.  On  the  whole,  however,  it  would  seem  that 
withdrawal  from  exacting  duties,  the  freedom  from  the 
necessity  of  self-support  and  the  leisure  thus  resulting, 
the  abatement  of  the  vita  sexualis  and  the  storm  and 
stress  this  is  now  known  to  cause,  the  fact  that  one 
is  now  no  longer  anxious  lest  he  do  or  say  anything  that 
would  interfere  with  his  own  future  career,  and  the 

348 


QUESTIONNAIRE  RETURNS 

sense  that  he  can  both  live  and  think  as  he  lists,  would 
altogether  constitute  a  loud  call  to  revise  his  views,  to 
get  down  to  fundamentals,  be  more  sincere  and  inde- 
pendent, to  get  better  acquainted  with  his  inmost  self, 
review  his  past  life,  and  draw  from  it  its  lessons. 
Morale,  as  I  have  elsewhere  tried  to  show,3  consists  in 
keeping  ourselves,  body  and  mind,  always  at  the  tiptop 
of  condition  and  this  is  ever  harder  to  do  as  age  ad- 
vances. But  I  think  we  may  conclude  that  just  in  pro- 
portion as  this  is  done  there  is  a  perhaps  prolonged 
and  delightful  "Indian  summer"  that  is  caused  by  the 
kind  of  mental  housecleaning  that  dispenses  with  all 
non-essentials  and  consists  in  warming  up  the  deeper 
emotions,  quickening  the  intellect  and  reinforcing  the 
will,  and  that  this  period  combines  uniquely  the  charm 
of  summer  and  fall  without  excessive  heat  and  without 
dangerous  chill.  All  invites  to  synthesis,  for  the  age 
of  excessive  and  diverting  specialization  that  is  forced 
upon  the  young  and  immature  in  our  day  is  past  and 
the  season  for  harvest  has  come.  And  it  is  just  this 
that  our  distracted  world  now  most  lacks  and  needs. 
Sane  and  ripe  old  age  has  a  new  sense  of  values,  rela- 
tions, perspectives ;  and  no  form  of  culture  man  has  ever 
produced  is  ripe  until  the  fruitage  it  contributes  to 
morals  and  life  has  been  garnered.  To  show  how  all 
our  achievements  affect  human  conduct  is  the  thing  the 
world  most  needs  to-day  and  needs  far  more  than  at 
any  other  period  in  history.  This  is  what  our  age  calls 
so  loudly  upon  the  old  to  supply.  Just  in  proportion 
as  civilization  advances  and  life  becomes  more  and  more 
complex  and  distracting,  the  need  of  older  and  wiser 
men  increases,  for  only  from  their  outlook  tower  can 
things  be  seen  in  their  true  perspective.  Wells's  new 


'Morale:     The  Supreme  Standard  of  Life  and  Conduct,  New  York, 
D.  Appleton  Co.,  1920.    376  pp. 

349 


SENESCENCE 

conspectus  of  history  represents  the  old  man's  view  and 
one  of  my  correspondents  writes  that  in  a  long  literary 
life  he  has  never  come  upon  anything  quite  so  stimulating 
and  absorbing.  It  is  this  sort  of  work  that  should  have 
been  done  by  an  old  man  and  such  tasks  can  only  be 
accomplished  by  those  younger  men  who  have  the  rare 
power  of  genius  to  anticipate  the  choicest  gifts  of  age. 
Plato  saw  that  the  proper  business  of  old  men  was  to 
philosophize;  and  what  is  religion,  to  which  so  many 
senescents  turn,  but  a  condensed  philosophy  put  in  the 
form  of  symbol,  myth,  and  rite. 

Old  women,  perhaps  even  more  than  old  men,  seem 
to  enjoy  an  "Indian  summer"  of  life.  The  best  of  them 
grow  serene,  tolerant,  liberal,  often  devote  themselves 
with  great  assiduity  to  charity,  to  causes,  to  helpful  and 
intelligent  ministrations  to  others,  perhaps  with  utter 
self-abnegation;  while  others  carry  on  affairs,  conduct 
enterprises  of  moment,  and  really  guide  all  about  them 
without  their  knowledge  and  without  realizing  them- 
selves that  they  are  doing  so;  still  others  read  with  an 
abandon  that  they  have  never  experienced  before  and 
are  often  wise  in  counsel,  even  subordinating  their  own 
daughters,  husbands,  and  perhaps  sons  in  a  way  that 
suggests  the  possibility  of  a  new  matriarchate.  They 
sometimes  develop  a  therapeutic  skill  that  is  a  modern 
analogue  of  the  old  grandmother's  medicinal  herb-lore 
and  is  as  unexplained  as  the  old  countryman's  weather 
wisdom.  They  are  almost  always  more  religious  than 
old  men  but  rarely  dogmatic  or  theological  and  often 
grow  indifferent  or  almost  oblivious  of  the  creeds  they 
affected  in  their  earlier  years.  Thus  they  illustrate  at 
every  stage  of  life  what  is  true  of  all  its  stages,  that 
woman  lives  nearer  to  the  life  of  the  race,  is  a  better 
representative  of  it,  and  so  a  more  generic  being  than 
man,  and  is  thus  less  prone  to  dwarfing  specialization. 
350 


QUESTIONNAIRE  RETURNS 

Do  you  rely  more  or  less  on  doctors  or  find  that  you 
must  study  yourself  and  be  your  own  doctor ? 

In  the  answers  to  this  question  there  was  a  general 
consensus  to  the  effect  that  doctors  were  resorted  to 
only  in  emergencies  of  illness,  accident,  or  perhaps  sur- 
gery, and  several  mentioned  the  old  saw  to  the  effect 
that  in  the  fourth  or  fifth  decade  a  man  is  either  a  fool, 
an  invalid,  or  a  physician  to  himself.  Only  a  few  fol- 
lowed the  practice  of  having  a  look-over  at  intervals 
as  a  prophylactic.  Two  had  special  friendships  for  a 
particular  doctor,  except  for  whom  they  would  have  no 
use  for  the  profession.  Several  expressed  their  grati- 
tude to  physicians  who  were  responsible  for  a  vacation, 
a  tour,  or  other  change.  Several  had  turned  away  from 
the  regulars  to  homeopathy,  osteopathy,  or  Christian 
Science.  Some  allowed  doctors  to  examine  and  prescribe 
and  then  used  their  own  judgment  as  to  how  much  of 
their  medicines  should  be  taken  or  prescriptions  fol- 
lowed. Some  relied  much  upon  physicians  who  had 
known  them  personally  for  a  long  period  or  practiced 
in  their  family  but  had  little  faith  in  new  physicians. 
One  doctor  professed  loss  of  confidence  in  his  profession 
and  had  "returned  to  nature."  A  few  had  found  fasting 
of  from  twenty- four  to  forty-eight  hours  beneficial  for 
most  of  their  ailments.  None  doubted,  and  several  ex- 
pressed very  special  gratitude  to  specialists,  particularly 
ophthalmologists  and  even  surgeons.  There  is  a  very 
general  aversion  to  drugs,  although  a  few  dosed  them- 
selves for  years,  tried  many  patent  medicines,  and  one 
thought  he  had  exhausted  almost  all  the  pharmacopoeia. 
Aging  people  often  regret  the  replacement  of  the  old 
family  physician  by  experts  who  in  prescribing  for  one 
defective  function  ignore  and  perhaps  injure  others. 
Occasionally  old  people  of  both  sexes  retain  or  revert 
to  old  family  traditions  of  the  virtue  of  herbs,  which 
played  such  a  great  role  in  the  ancient  days  of  the 


SENESCENCE 

herbalists.  We  find,  too,  outcrops  of  the  fear  that  sur- 
geons are  too  ready  to  operate.  One  old  man  told  me 
that  in  a  recent  illness  it  took  him  a  month  to  get  over 
the  disease  and  three  months  to  recover  from  the  effects 
of  the  medicines  the  doctor  had  prescribed.  Another 
followed  the  precept  of  young  doctors  for  special  and 
acute,  and  old  doctors  for  general,  troubles  and  for  pre- 
scriptions of  regimen.  It  is  often  deplored  that  while 
women's  diseases,  troubles  of  sight,  throat,  lungs,  ab- 
domen, and  children's  disorders,  have  each  their  own 
specialists,  there  are  almost  none  who  have  specialized  on 
old  age  and  that  when  the  old  are  seriously  ill,  there  is  a 
general  tendency  in  the  profession  to  give  up  hope  too 
soon,  to  pay  less  attention  to  those  who  because  of  age 
and  its  feebleness  will  die  soon  anyway.  We  have  fre- 
quent illustrations  of  remarkable  recoveries  of  old  people 
who  had  been  given  up  by  physicians. 

It  must  not  be  forgotten,  however,  that  medicine  has 
made  great  strides  in  the  last  few  decades  and  that  the 
older  generation  now  passing  has  not  yet  come  to  a  full 
realization  of  the  new  resources  that  the  advances  of 
modern  pathology  and  the  other  sciences  that  underlie 
the  healing  art  have  brought  to  it.  Perhaps  we  might 
commend  to  the  aged,  when  they  first  fully  realize  that 
they  are  old,  the  course  of  one  of  our  respondents,  who 
made  a  round  of  the  specialists  for  the  different  organs 
to  reinforce  his  own  hygienic  self-knowledge,  although 
he  found  the  prophylactic  prescriptions  of  the  different 
experts  so  contradictory  as  to  be  often  practically  im- 
possible. Unhappily,  however,  we  have  no  agencies  to 
examine  the  whole  ensemble  of  parts  and  functions  and 
suggest  modes  of  life  fit  for  each  individual,  as  for 
example,  the  Life  Extension  Institute  should  do.  Noth- 
ing is  more  certain  than  that  every  senescent  should, 
with  increasing  frequency,  have  himself  looked  over  that 
352 


QUESTIONNAIRE  RETURNS 

he  may  anticipate,  at  as  early  a  stage  as  possible,  the 
onset  of  the  many  physiological  failures  that  impend. 

Do  you  get  more  or  less  from  the  clergy  and  the 
church  than  formerly? 

All  answered  this  question,  with  surprising  unanimity 
and  but  slight  reservations,  negatively.  A  few  still  loved 
church  services,  had  clerical  friends  whom  they  loved 
and  respected,  went  to  church  for  the  music,  enjoyed 
university  preachers,  reread  portions  of  the  Bible  with 
edification,  etc.  Many  thought  the  clergy  insincere  or 
ignorant,  too  absorbed  in  money-raising,  preposterously 
antagonistic  to  science,  or  found  the  same  uplift  in  read- 
ing other  great  literature  as  in  the  Scriptures.  Over 
and  over  we  find  statements  to  the  effect  that  the  writer 
has  become  his  own  high-priest,  minister,  oracle,  captain 
of  his  soul,  no  longer  in  need  of  ecclesiastical  mediation 
with  the  divine,  etc.  "Why  is  the  church  still  so 
apologetic  when  science  does  not  apologize  for  Coper- 
nicus ?"  "Why  has  the  church  waged  such  bitter  warfare 
against  Darwinism,  when  evolution  is  only  another  and 
better  name  for  the  revelation  of  the  divine  and  should 
have  brought  such  enlargement  and  reinforcement  to 
religious  thought  and  feelings?"  One  eminent  artist 
finds  all  the  religion  he  needs  in  art ;  students  of  science 
find  it  in  nature;  students  of  the  humanities,  in  the 
study  of  the  deeper  nature  of  man.  The  beautiful  is 
just  as  religious,  if  not  more  so,  than  the  good  or  the 
true.  "There  is  only  one  great  word  in  the  world  and 
that  is  love"  "I  preached  all  the  doctrines  and  found 
some  truth  in  many  of  them  but  have  rejected  most,  and 
perhaps  the  form  of  all,  as  pulp  and  rind."  "Each  of 
us  must  work  out  our  own  salvation."  "My  religion 
is  the  Red  Cross."  Several  who  had  been  brought  up 
pietists  and  had  attached  themselves  to  various  churches 
in  turn  had,  in  later  years,  withdrawn  from  all  and  come 

353 


SENESCENCE 

to  depend  on  their  own  reading  and  meditation.  "The 
clergy  are  blind  leaders  of  the  blind."  In  one  case  church 
was  discontinued  because  the  assumptions  of  pulpiteers 
aroused  "all  my  porcupine  quills."  Some  had  ceased  to 
attend  divine  services  because  they  seemed  irreligious 
compared  to  the  deeper  religion  they  find  within.  The 
higher  criticism  has  brought  insights  to  some  that  the 
church  knows  not  of  and  "my  real  conversion  was  from, 
not  to,  the  church.  It  knows  and  can  teach  us  nothing 
about  the  hereafter." 

Thus,  in  general  it  would  seem,  if  our  meager  returns 
are  at  all  typical,  that  the  clergyman  makes  less  appeal 
to  the  old  and  knows  less  about  ministering  to  their 
nature  and  needs  than  do  physicians.  It  must  not  be 
forgotten,  however,  that,  as  one  of  our  respondents  says 
in  substance,  the  views  of  those  this  questionnaire  ap- 
pealed to,  people  of  intelligence  and  culture,  are  excep- 
tional, and  probably  the  majority  of  the  uneducated  have 
at  least  a  falsetto  belief  in  some  institutions  and  teach- 
ings of  the  church.  Our  returns  indicate,  however,  the 
same  growth  of  skepticism  with  years  as  that  found  by 
the  far  more  extensive  conspectus  of  J.  H.  Leuba,4  from 
which  he  gathered  that  the  percentage  of  those  who 
believed  in  God  and  immortality  decreased  both  with  age 
and  with  education. 

Do  you  think  or  worry  about  dying  or  the  hereafter 
more  or  less  than  formerly? 

Here,  as  was  to  be  expected  in  our  age  of  transition 
and  eclair cissement,  there  is  the  utmost  diversity.  All 
my  respondents  answered  but  only  four  of  them  (three 
women)  found  anything  like  the  orthodox  religious  con- 
solations afforded  by  the  hope  of  a  personal  immortality. 
Most  were  agnostic.  "I  know  as  much  about  it  as  anyone 

* Belief  in  God  and  Immortality:  A  Psychological,  Anthropological,  and 
Statistical  Study,  Boston,  1906. 

354 


QUESTIONNAIRE  RETURNS 

who  ever  lived,  which  is  absolutely  nothing."  Four 
were  distinctly  pantheistic  and  found  pleasure  in  the 
belief  of  extinction,  annihilation,  or  absorption  into  the 
cosmos  like  a  drop  of  water  returning  to  the  sea.  About 
one-half  had  lost  confidence  in  sacerdotalism  and  had 
no  connection  with  any  church  and  a  few  were  bitter 
against  ecclesiastical  assumptions.  Most  had  ceased  to 
worry  about  death,  a  few  professed  never  to  think  of  it, 
two  dreaded  the  pain  they  associated  with  the  act  of 
dying,  and  one  prayed  that  the  end  might  be  instan- 
taneous. Men  of  science  wished  and  hoped  that  they 
might  go  on  "thinking  God's  thoughts  after  Him"  with 
renewed  facilities  and  incentives  for  getting  nearer  to 
the  soul  of  the  great  Autos.  One's  life-long  religion 
seems  to  have  been  based  on  the  analogy  of  the  chick 
in  the  egg  who  regarded  hatching  as  its  death,  when 
it  was  really  coming  into  a  vaster  life.  Most  disclaimed 
all  terror,  although  two  in  their  youth  had  felt  that 
this  might  recur  in  second  childhood.  The  attitude  of 
most  might  be  described  by  the  phrases :  "one  world  at 
a  time  and  this  one  now;"  "consider  the  duty  of  the 
present  moment  and  leave  the  rest ;"  "never  be  anxious 
concerning  anything  beyond  our  control,"  etc.  One 
wished  to  die  like  a  pious  Buddhist  in  thinking  on  his 
good  deeds.  One  expressed  a  strong  contempt  for  a 
god  who  would  tolerate  an  orthodox  hell  and  several 
felt  that  they  would  sooner  or  later  become  wearied  to 
the  point  of  ennui  with  a  heaven  according  to  any  con- 
ception of  it.  Most  had  reckoned  with  the  chance  of 
death  in  the  plans  of  their  business,  making  their  wills, 
etc.,  but  believed  that  all  thought  concerning  the  here- 
after was  a  waste  of  energy.  Several  found  consolation 
only  in  influential  immortality  and  wanted  to  live  on  in 
the  memory  of  their  friends  and  in  the  service  they  had 
rendered  to  others,  although  this  idea  was  generally 
connected  with  thoughts  of  plasmal  immortality  or  living 
355 


SENESCENCE 

on  in  their  offspring.  One  good  old  lady  I  knew  who 
had  spent  a  life  doing  good  works  and  had  always  at- 
tended church  said,  in  answer  to  this  question,  that  she 
had  been  so  occupied  in  active  services  that  she  had 
never  found  time  to  think  much  about  theology  but  in 
her  heart  doubted  all  doctrines,  was  not  at  all  sure  that 
she  believed  in  either  God  or  immortality,  and  was  con- 
vinced only  that  whatever  happened  would  be  all  right. 
Old  clergymen  seem  particularly  prone  to  suffer  from 
doubts,  sometimes  of  the  most  radical  nature,  and  even 
wonder  if  after  a  life  of  zealous  propaganda  they  may, 
after  all,  have  been  wrong.  Several  professed  them- 
selves more  deeply  religious,  as  they  understand  religion, 
than  the  church  itself,  and  even  insisted  upon  a  larger, 
deeper  faith  than  orthodoxy  dreams  of. 

It  would  seem,  from  these  and  other  data,  that  the 
fears  of  death  are  by  far  most  intense  in  youth,  and  that 
in  moments  when  the  tide  of  life  ebbs  and  there  are 
great  griefs  or  disappointments — not  only  in  love,  where 
it  is  most  marked,  but  along  other  life  lines — a  terrible 
and  sudden  envisagement  of  death  often  arises,  although 
this  mood  is  generally  flitting  and  soon  passes.  When 
in  age  the  forces  of  life  abate,  death  has  already  begun 
its  work  and  if  belief  in  personal  immortality  remains 
it  is  sustained  and  fed  chiefly  by  poetic  metaphors  or 
similes  that  have  little  justification  before  the  bar  of 
reason  and  are  essentially  tenuous  and  sentimental. 
Certain  it  is  that  inhibitions  of  the  life  tide  do  not  so 
readily  prompt  thoughts  of  suicide;  though  if  they  do 
so,  as  statistics  show,  the  thought  of  it  is  more  likely 
to  prompt  the  act  of  self-destruction  in  the  later  decades 
than  it  is  in  youth,  when  nearly  all  coquette  with  these 
thoughts.  The  curve  has  two  crests,  one  in  adolescence 
and  the  other  in  senescence. 

The  chief  psychological  inference  seems  to  be  that 
the  old  generally  refuse  to  face  squarely  and  come  to 

356 


QUESTIONNAIRE  RETURNS 

terms  with  the  death-thought  consciously  because  it  is 
more  fatal  to  them  than  to  the  young,  but  fly  to  every 
kind  of  relief  from  it  by  diversion  to  other  things  and 
themes.  In  age  there  is  often  a  narrowing  of  the  intel- 
lectual horizon  to  the  immediate  environment  and  this 
itself  is  opiative.  Thus  nature  alleviates  in  the  old  the 
fear  of  death,  which  impends  and  which  they  know  to 
be  near.  They  sometimes  wonder  just  how  it  will  come 
but  rarely  dwell  upon  such  details  as  their  own  obsequies 
or  leaving  last  messages  and  think  more  often,  if  their 
thoughts  stray  to  such  subjects,  of  the  effects  their 
demise  will  entail  upon  the  course  of  life  of  others.  The 
fact  is,  the  race  has  always  found  death  too  terrible 
to  be  faced  in  all  its  horrors  and  has  camouflaged  and 
disguised  its  grim  details  by  tombs  and  avoided  the 
direct  envisagement  of  it  by  focusing  attention  upon 
the  soul  that  survives  in  ways  we  shall  see  more  clearly 
hereafter. 

Some  individuals'  returns  transcended  my  rubrics  ana 
have  a  value  in  themselves  that  merit,  and  I  hope  will 
find,  publication  in  full  elsewhere.  One  man  known  and 
loved  wherever  the  English  language  is  spoken,  who 
died  in  1921  in  his  84th  year,  had  the  supreme  good 
fortune  for  nearly  thirty  years  to  have  the  almost  daily 
association  and  assistance  of  a  sagacious  lady  physician 
who  entered  sympathetically  into  all  his  interests  and 
became  his  literary  executor  and  biographer.  This 
venerable  man,  so  buoyant  in  his  writings,  grew  de- 
pressed as  age  advanced,  especially  toward  nightfall, 
although  this  is  nowhere  expressed  in  his  books  but 
abounds  in  his  diaries.  He  developed  an  interest  that 
seems  abnormal  in  everything  pertaining  to  diet,  tried 
scores  of  new  foods  and  drinks,  only  to  discard  them 
one  after  another,  and  became  so  averse  to  tea,  coffee, 
and  smoking  that  it  was  hard  for  him  to  tolerate  those 
addicted  to  them.  But  it  was  on  the  problems  connected 

357 


SENESCENCE 

with  constipation  and  evacuation  that  his  interest  seems 
to  have  become  most  exaggerated.  In  his  converse  even 
with  the  young  but  especially  with  those  near  his  own 
age  he  constantly  reverted  to  this  subject  and  his 
favorite  theme  of  conversation  seems  to  have  been  on 
topics  of  personal  and  especially  dietary  hygiene.  He 
studied  the  chemistry  of  nutrition  and  corresponded 
with  experts  upon  the  subject  and,  attempted  to  carry  out 
upon  himself  all  their  findings  as  he  understood  them. 
Eggs  he  thought  more  or  less  poisonous  and  for  a  time 
he  seemed  almost  to  think  that  the  hens  that  laid  them 
could  not  be  suitable  food.  His  idiosyncrasies  in  this 
field  would  constitute  a  unique  theme  for  study  that 
would  have  lessons  all  its  own.  He  was  always  check- 
ing his  appetite  and  experimenting  upon  and  observing 
himself.  There  were,  in  this  case,  somewhat  unique 
signs  of  an  Indian  summer.  He  wrote  twelve  books 
from  the  age  of  30  to  64,  and  fifteen  from  64  to  near  84. 
At  64  he  felt  that  he  had  written  himself  out  but  soon 
struck  other  veins,  so  that  his  later  books  cannot  be 
called  inferior  to  his  earlier  ones.  In  editing  poems  of 
Nature  at  this  time  he  found  so  many  aspects  of  it  that 
poets  had  overlooked  that  he  undertook  to  supply  the 
gap  and  had  a  period  of  rhyming  that  lasted  about  a 
year. 

This  suggests  another  octogenarian  I  knew,  a  great 
leader  in  mathematics  and  a  man  of  international  fame, 
who  in  his  latest  years  believed  that  he  had  poetic  gifts 
and  wooed  the  muses,  even  the  goddess  of  love,  with 
canticles  that  amazed  his  friends,  who  wondered  whether 
he  was  just  making  his  acquaintance  with  poetry  for 
the  first  time  or  had  known  it  more  discriminatingly 
earlier  in  life  and  lost  his  standards.  Another  eminent 
man  I  knew  whose  name  is  known  throughout  the 
literary  world,  and  who  was  also  a  physician,  believed 
in  and  practiced  frequent  naps,  in  which  I  have  seen 

358 


QUESTIONNAIRE  RETURNS 

him  indulge  between  the  courses  of  a  long  public  dinner, 
in  the  intervals  of  which  he  would  converse  with  all 
his  old  sprightliness  and  vigor  and  at  the  close  make 
the  best  speech  of  the  occasion.  There  waS  no  record 
of  even  midday  sleeps  with  the  naturalist  above  de- 
scribed. He  usually  did  his  best  work  in  the  forenoon 
but  occasionally,  even  in  the  last  years  of  his  life,  worked 
till  late  at  night  and  resumed  early  in  the  morning, 
doing  this  for  some  days  as  with  a  kind  of  afflatus.  He 
also  kept  up  an  active  interest  in  public  affairs  until  his 
increasing  illness  compelled  him  to  narrow  down  his 
interests  more  and  more,  so  that  toward  the  end  they 
seemed  to  center  entirely  in  himself. 

A  man  of  eighty  ceased  manual  work  at  fifty  and  had 
a  marked  intellectual  renaissance  and  became  an  author. 
He  has  come  to  realize  the  limitations  of  doctors  and, 
although  he  employs  them,  is  his  own  ultimate  judge 
in  all  matters  pertaining  to  his  health.  He  has  with- 
drawn from  the  influence  of  the  clergy.  "My  science 
and  reason  say  that  there  is  no  hereafter  while  my  faith 
says  that  there  is  but  I  do  not  give  myself  any  trouble 
about  their  quarrel  for  it  will  all  be  decided  soon 
enough."  "I  am  more  disposed  to  take  the  far  view  of 
things  and  try  to  estimate  wider  relations  than  for- 
merly." "I  feel  that  my  duty  is  to  the  race  and  to  humanity 
rather  than  to  any  section  of  it."  He  reads  science 
and  occasionally  a  good  story,  although  the  latter  "must 
have  some  interest  besides  that  of  love."  "I  formerly 
was  fond  of  hunting  and  fishing  but  the  killing  instinct 
has  faded  with  age,  as  it  does  with  most  people;  but 
the  forest  and  field,  the  sea  and  land,  are  beautiful 
beyond  compare  and  their  infinitely  varied  forms  are 
more  bewitching  than  ever."  Everyone,  he  thinks, 
should  have  some  Bohemia  into  which  he  should  retreat 
when  overtaken  by  age  and  has  leisure,  and  his  has  been 
genealogy,  mainly  getting  acquainted  with  his  own  an- 

359 


SENESCENCE 

cestors  and  trying  to  visualize  them  as  men  and  women, 
feeling  that  he  owes  to  them  all  his  qualities,  mental, 
moral,  and  physical. 

A  liberal  clergyman  approaching  the  eighties  after 
a  life  of  unique  eminence  and  service  writes :  "As  for 
a  future  life  for  the  soul  of  man,  I  believe  it  is  a  moral 
necessity  to  explain  and  justify  his  ethical  conduct  in 
the  present  sphere  of  existence.  If,  nevertheless,  after 
death  there  should  be  no  continued  existence,  individu- 
ally and  consciously,  I  am  ready  to  accept  this  solution 
as  also  wise  and  right  because  ordained  by  Him  who 
is  all-wise  and  good — 'I  cannot  drift  beyond  His  loving 
care/  "  He  believes  that  his  devotion  to  great  causes 
that  he  has  seen  advance,  while  "conserving  divine  ideals 
below,  which  ever  find  us  young  and  ever  keep  us  so," 
has  contributed  to  his  exceptional  vigor  and  his  message 
to  the  young  is  to  prepare  for  old  age  physically,  eco- 
nomically, intellectually,  morally,  and  religiously.  He 
grows  more  charitable  and  appreciative,  feels  deep 
personal  gratitude  to  physicians,  who  have  more  than 
once  saved  his  life;  blesses  his  long-lived  parents  for 
the  rare  constitution  that  has  not  only  carried  him 
through  but  given  him  a  recuperative  power  at  which 
he  has  often  marveled,  dreads  the  excess  of  sentiment 
he  often  notes  in  others  of  his  age,  who  too  readily 
become  lachrymose ;  deplores  the  excessive  freedom  and 
growing  self-affirmation,  lack  of  restraint  and  modesty, 
courtesy,  and  thoughtfulness  for  others  in  the  rising 
generation;  thinks,  with  Goethe,  that  if  as  he  grows 
older  he  has  less  keenness  of  sympathy  for  suffering, 
he  thrills  more  deeply  in  the  contemplation  of  every 
noble  and  disinterested  act;  finds  satisfaction  in  know- 
ing that  his  ashes  (for  he  has  long  been  an  advocate  of 
cremation)  will  lie  near  other  dear  ones  on  a  beautiful 
hillside  in  sight  of  the  Pacific;  and  takes  satisfaction  in 
reviewing  his  life  from  a  large  ethical  standpoint. 

360 


QUESTIONNAIRE  RETURNS 

A  naturalist  of  seventy-two  of  international  reputa- 
tion, who  has  done  perhaps  more  creative  work  for 
the  benefit  of  the  human  race  in  his  field  than 
any  other  living  man,  first  realized  that  he  was 
old  at  sixty-five,  when  digestion  and  elimination 
were  very  slightly  reduced.  Feeling  the  need  of  com- 
panionship he  married  at  sixty-seven  and  found  in- 
creased happiness  and  rejuvenation.  Frail  when  young, 
he  learned  early  to  take  better  care  of  himself,  restrict- 
ing the  amount  of  starchy  foods  and  stressing  the 
importance  of  the  daily  use  of  one  ounce  of  agar-agar, 
one  ounce  of  wheat  bran,  and  half  an  ounce  of  liquid 
paraffin,  which  has  become  an  absolute  necessity.  He 
writes  three  hours  and  works  his  head  and  body  out- 
doors eight  hours  per  day,  covering  rarely  less  than 
twelve  miles.  He  is  not  only  his  own  doctor  but  has 
often  helped  others  by  his  experience.  "I  never  worry 
about  dying  or  think  of  the  hereafter,"  he  says.  "I 
have  done  good  work  for  my  fellow  men,  have  never 
injured,  over-reached,  or  cheated  a  human  being  in  all 
my  life  and  hope  to  live  in  the  hearts  of  others  so  that 
my  works  and  words  may  be  of  value  to  those  who 
follow."  "I  have  no  earthly  or  heavenly  use  for  the 
clergy  or  church;  am  my  own  minister  to  my  soul." 
"I  have  no  regrets  whatever  for  anything  I  have  ever 
done  through  life  but  have  been  'done  for*  several  times 
by  others."  "Since  about  fifty  I  have  taken  more  inter- 
est in  public  and  community  affairs  and  the  future  life 
of  those  who  are  to  come  after."  His  great  temptation 
is  physical  and  mental  overwork,  which  it  requires  con- 
stant care  to  curb.  "I  am  now  in  the  'Indian  summer* 
of  mental  clarity,  finding  myself  able  to  do  very  much 
heavier  and  better  work  than  at  any  other  time  in  life, 
and  only  wish  I  could  continue  to  carry  on  these  experi- 
ments throughout  the  ages  but  am  limiting  myself  to 
experiments  that  will  not  last  more  than  ten  or  twenty 

361 


SENESCENCE 

years."  He  receives  several  score  letters  a  day  and  is 
editing  a  comprehensive  work  of  eight  volumes  describ- 
ing perhaps  the  most  complicated  creative  work  that 
has  fallen  to  the  hands  of  man  to  do. 

One  of  America's  most  eminent  educators  and  leaders 
in  science,  and  the  creator  of  a  great  university,  who 
has  made  his  mark  on  the  world  as  an  advocate  of  peace, 
believing,  however,  that  when  we  were  once  in  the  war 
we  should  push  it  with  the  utmost  vigor,  regrets  only 
that  he  has,  on  one  or  two  occasions,  been  misunder- 
stood. He  has  traveled  and  lectured  very  extensively 
and  is  widely  known  by  his  books  outside  his  own 
specialty.  He  ascribes  his  vigor  to  his  early  life  on  a 
farm  and  his  outdoor  life  as  a  student  of  nature.  Al- 
though he  became  a  doctor  of  medicine  in  1875  ne  nas 
had  occasion  to  feel  the  deepest  appreciation  of  the 
services  a  few  other  members  of  that  profession  have 
rendered  him.  He  says:  "I  have  good  friends  among 
the  clergy  and  often  preach  to  them.  They  have  no 
special  pull  on  my  future.  I  shall  probably  have  to  go 
out  alone ;  I  came  in  that  way."  He  writes : 

When  man  shall  come  to  Manhood's  destiny 
When  our  slow-creeping  race  shall  be  full-grown 
Deep  in  each  human  heart  a  chamber  lone 
Of  holies,  holiest  shall  builded  be ; 
And  each  man  for  himself  shall  hold  the  key, 
Each  one  shall  kindle  his  own  altar  fires, 
Each  burn  an  offering  of  his  own  desires, 
And  each  at  last  his  own  high-priest  must  be. 

A  Quaker  lady  of  seventy-four  has  reread  Emerson, 
Browning,  Tennyson,  Shakespeare,  and  other  masters, 
and  found  them  more  intelligible  and  charged  with 
meaning  than  ever  before.  Hence  she  is  convinced  that 
she  has  a  new  mental  clarity,  not  only  in  regard  to 
these  but  to  the  fundamental  questions  of  life.  She 

362 


QUESTIONNAIRE  RETURNS 

shrinks  from  companionship  with  the  very  old  and  in- 
firm but  loves  society  more  than  ever,  especially  of  those 
somewhat  younger  than  herself.  She  feels  no  tempta- 
tion except  to  indulge  too  much  in  day-dreaming,  has 
less  love  for  young  children  individually  but  found  more 
enthusiasm  than  in  anything  else  in  a  cause  that  saved 
the  lives  of  many  and  improved  the  condition  of  yet 
more.  She  is  deeply  religious,  reading  the  Bible  daily 
and  hoping  to  see  her  departed  friends  in  another  life, 
although  "I  have  my  doubts." 

One  venerable  respondent  wrote  in  substance  that  no 
words  could  describe  the  rest  and  peace  that  slowly 
supervened  after  he  had  ridded  his  mind  of  every  vestige 
of  the  old  belief  in  which  he  was  trained  of  a  future 
personal  life  and  realized  that  he  would  live  on  only  in 
the  contribution  he  had  made  to  the  sum  of  human 
knowledge  and  welfare,  in  the  grateful  memory  of  his 
friends,  in  his  posterity,  and  that  his  individuality,  with 
all  its  limitations,  would  be  resolved  into  or  rendered 
back  to  the  cosmos  with  his  mouldering  corpse.  When 
he  realized  that  death  would  end  all  forever  for  him 
and  was  once  free  from  all  the  harassing  hopes  and 
fears  about  a  postmortem  state,  the  new  serenity  and 
poise  made  him  believe  that  he  had  penetrated  to  a  deeper 
psychic  level  than  that  explored  and  bequeathed  to  the 
Christian  world  by  the  marvelously  gifted  but  epileptic 
apostle,  Paul,  and  that  he  had  struck  the  bedrock  of 
humanity  and  attained  a  fuller  and  larger  completeness 
of  life  as  it  was  meant  to  be  and  will  be  if  man  ever 
comes  to  full  maturity.  He  compares  the  attainment 
of  this  new  attitude  toward  death  to  the  change  that 
took  place  in  Bunyan's  Christian  when  he  turned  his 
back  upon  the  city  of  Vanity  Fair  and  faced  the 
Delectable  Mountain. 

An  able  respondent  who  has  given  much  attention 
to  these  subjects  concludes  that  deep  in  his  soul  every 

363 


SENESCENCE 

candid  mind  feels  that  all  arguments  for  immortality 
are  more  or  less  falsetto  and  do  not  ring  true,  are  facti- 
tious, and  are  neither  born  of  nor  have  the  power  to 
bring  inner  conviction.  Their  propounders,  if  they  are 
honest  to  the  core  and  also  if  they  have  the  power  to 
analyze  their  own  mental  processes  in  constructing  such 
so-called  proofs,  feel,  though  they  may  not  know  it,  that 
they  are  really  reasoning  against  their  own  profounder 
convictions  or  seeking  to  convince  themselves  against 
their  own  intuitions.  They  vilipend  skepticism  because 
they  hope  thus  to  drown  its  still  small  voice  in  them- 
selves. In  no  other  field  of  thought  does  it  begin  to  be 
so  hard  to  be  sincere  with  ourselves  and  in  no  other 
domain  of  belief  do  men  accept  such  specious  and  incon- 
clusive evidence.  Most  demonstrators  of  immortality 
within  the  Christian  pale  fall  back  sooner  or  later,  some 
more  and  some  less,  upon  the  myth  of  revelation  and 
the  postulated  faculty  called  faith  which,  when  we  study 
its  psychology,  turns  out  to  be  only  a  hope-wish  born  of 
the  unspent  momentum  of  the  will-to-live  and  this  de- 
ploys in  the  individual  in  which  it  is  thus  falsely  inter- 
preted, as  egoism  wants  it  to  be.  Rich  and  rank  as 
have  been  its  products  for  the  imagination,  they  are 
fancy  bred  and,  in  fact,  superstitions,  extra-beliefs  or 
'Aberglauben  of  the  psyche  and  their  acceptance  as 
authentic  or  final  is  always  and  everywhere  a  craven 
flight  from  reality,  for  the  sentence  of  execution  is  al- 
ready passed  upon  all  of  us  and  is  only  suspended  for 
a  season. 

One  thoughtful  respondent  who  is  facing  his  sunset 
years  says  that  he  has  heard  some  sixty-five  hundred 
sermons  and  has  reversed  certain  of  his  opinions  so  that 
he  has  felt  compelled  to  resign  as  a  trustee  of  his  church 
since  he  has  a  new  and  clear  idea  of  the  kind  of  church 
he  wants.  He  cannot  longer  believe  in  the  kind  of  deity 
who  likes  to  be  flattered,  thanked,  entreated,  and  listen 

364 


QUESTIONNAIRE  RETURNS 

to  Te  Deums.  "We  inherit  such  ideas  from  vain  Orien- 
tal kings."  "Symbolisms  a  thousand  years  old  are  not 
suited  to  us  or  to  our  times."  "I  cannot  subscribe  to 
that  stock  idea — 'the  religion  I  got  from  my  mother's 
knee  is  good  enough  for  me* — for  by  the  same  token  we 
should  now  be  idolaters  or  Druids."  "Now  that  the 
church  has  become  a  man  it  ought  to  'put  away  childish 
things'  and  should  no  longer  use  'bottles'  and  ceremonies 
two  or  three  thousand  years  old."  "If  we  judge  the 
church  by  its  results  in  suppressing  selfishness  or  even 
vice,  it  is  a  failure  and  any  other  agency  in  any  other 
field  or  business  not  being  able  to  show  any  better  and 
faster  results,  that  is,  in  reducing  crime,  unrest,  selfish- 
ness, and  hate  between  classes,  races,  and  nations,  es- 
pecially as  evidenced  by  the  experiences  of  the  decade 
191 1-1921,  would  have  to  resign."  "If  Christianity  had 
not  been,  almost  from  the  very  start,  handicapped  by  the 
church  in  creating  irrelevant  and  quarrelsome  issues  and 
diverting  emphasis  to  a  future  life,  instead  of  improving 
the  conditions  of  the  present  one,  it  is  fair  to  say  that 
our  present  social,  moral,  and  spiritual  condition  would 
have  been  very  different  from  and  better  than  it  is." 
The  church  atmosphere,  hymns,  prayers,  sermons, 
ceremonies,  "are  all  age-musty  and  dominated  by  and 
saturated  with  miracles  and  sanguinary  and  puzzling 
atonement  and  trinity  theology,  things  with  which  I  am 
no  longer  in  sympathy  and  the  emphasis  of  which  is 
offensive  to  me."  "I  think  all  these  things  are  man- 
made  incrustations.  I  sometimes  think  the  wonder  is 
not  why  so  many  men  stay  away  from  church  but  why 
so  many  attend  it.  Religion  must  be  rescued.  I  do  not 
know  how  but  it  has  got  to  be  done." 


365 


CHAPTER   VIII 

SOME  CONCLUSIONS 

The  early  decades  of  age— The  deadline  of  seventy— The  patheticism  of 
the  old — The  attitude  of  physicians  toward  them — Fluctuations  of  youth 
— Erotic  decline — Alternations  in  the  domain  of  sleep,  food,  mood, 
irritability,  rational  self-control,  and  sex — The  dawn  of  old  age  in 
women— Dangers  of  the  disparity  when  December  weds  May — Sexual 
hygiene  for  the  old — Mental  effects  of  the  dulling  of  sensations— Lack 
of  mental  pabulum— The  tedium  vitae — Changes  in  the  emotional  life- 
Age  not  second  childhood — Women  in  the  dangerous  age — Need  of  a 
new  and  higher  type  of  old  age — Aristotle's  golden  mean  and  the  mag- 
nanimous man — The  age  of  disillusion — Increased  power  of  synthesis 
— Nature's  balance  between  old  and  young— The  eternal  war  between 
them — Superior  powers  of  the  old  in  perspective  and  larger  views — New 
love  of  nature  and  the  country — Their  preeminence  in  religion,  politics, 
philosophy,  morals,  and  as  judges — Looking  within  and  without — Merg- 
ing with  the  cosmos — The  three  ways  of  escaping  the  decay  of  civiliza- 
tion. 

To  learn  that  we  are  really  old  is  a  long,  complex, 
and  painful  experience.  Each  decade  the  circle  of  the 
Great  Fatigue  narrows  around  us,  restricting  the  inten- 
sity and  endurance  of  our  activities.  In  the  thirties  the 
athletic  power  passes  its  prime,  for  muscular  energy 
begins  to  abate.  There  is  also  some  loss  of  deftness, 
subtlety,  and  power  of  making  fine,  complex  movements 
of  the  accessory  motor  system,  and  a  loss  of  facility  for 
acquiring  new  skills.  In  the  forties  grayness  and,  in 
men,  baldness  may  begin  and  eyesight  is  a  little  less 
acute  so  that  we  hold  our  book  or  paper  farther  off. 
We  are  less  fond  of  "roughing"  it  or  of  severe  forms 
of  exercise.  We  may  become  so  discontented  with  our 
achievements  or  our  environment  that  we  change  our 
whole  plan  of  life.  In  the  fifties  we  feel  that  half  a 
century  is  a  long  time  to  have  lived  and  compare  our 
vitality  with  that  of  our  forbears  and  contemporaries 
366 


SOME  CONCLUSIONS 

of  the  same  age.  Memory  for  names  may  occasionally 
slip  a  cog.  We  go  to  the  physician  for  a  "once  over" 
to  be  sure  that  all  our  organs  are  functioning  properly. 
We  realize  that  if  we  are  ever  to  accomplish  anything 
more  in  the  world  we  must  be  up  and  at  it  and  give 
up  many  old  hopes  and  ambitions  as  vain.  Perhaps  we 
indulge  ourselves  in  certain  pleasures  hitherto  denied 
before  it  is  forever  too  late.  At  sixty  we  realize  that 
there  is  but  one  more  threshold  to  cross  before  we  find 
ourselves  in  the  great  hall  of  discard  where  most  lay 
their  burdens  down  and  that  what  remains  yet  to  do 
must  be  done  quickly.  Hence  this  is  a  decade  peculiarly 
prone  to  overwork.  We  refuse  to  compromise  with  fail- 
ing powers  but  drive  ourselves  all  the  more  because  we 
are  on  the  home  stretch.  We  anticipate  leaving  but 
must  leave  things  right  and  feel  we  can  rest  up  after- 
wards. So  we  are  prone  to  overdraw  our  account  of 
energy  and  brave  the  danger  of  collapse  if  our  overdraft 
is  not  honored.  Thus  some  cross  the  conventional  dead- 
line of  seventy  in  a  state  of  exhaustion  that  nature  can 
never  entirely  make  good.  Added  to  all  this  is  the  strug- 
gle, never  so  intense  for  men  as  in  the  sixties,  to  seem 
younger,  to  be  and  remain  necessary,  and  perhaps  to 
circumvent  the  looming  possibilities  of  displacement  by 
younger  men.  Thus  it  is  that  men  often  shorten  their 
lives  and,  what  is  far  more  important,  impair  the  quality 
of  their  old  age,  so  that  we  yet  see  and  know  but  little 
of  what  it  could,  should,  or  would  be  if  we  could  order 
life  according  to  its  true  nature  and  intent.  Only  greater 
easement  between  fifty  and  seventy  can  bring  ripe, 
healthful,  vigorous  senectitude,  the  services  of  which  to 
the  race  constitute,  as  I  have  elsewhere  tried  to  show, 
probably  the  very  greatest  need  of  our  civilization 
to-day. 

In  the  seventies  we  often  begin  to  muse  on  how  our 
environment  will  look  and  what  our  friends  will  do 

367 


*    SENESCENCE 

when  we  are  gone;  and  now  the  suspicion,  hitherto 
nebulous,  that  there  are  quarters  in  which  our  demise 
would  be  welcome  may  arise  to  consciousness  and  per- 
haps take  definite  form.  There  are  those  who,  also 
perhaps  unconsciously,  are  waiting  for  our  place  or  posi- 
tions and  so  we  grow  hypersensitive  to  every  manifesta- 
tion of  respect  or  esteem  and  not  only  resist  being  set 
aside  or  being  superseded  but  seek  to  find  new  kinds 
of  service  that  will  be  recognized  as  useful.  The  seven- 
tieth is  the  saddest  of  all  birthdays  and  if  we  "linger 
superfluous  on  the  stage,"  we  feel  that  society  regards 
us  as,  to  some  extent,  a  class  apart ;  and  so  we  instinc- 
tively make  more  effort  to  compensate  our  clumsiness 
by  spryness  and  gently  resist  the  kindly  offices  and 
tokens  of  respect  to  which  the  young  incline  or,  perhaps 
more  often,  are  taught  to  render  the  old.  We  are  a 
trifle  more  prone  to  lose  or  mislay  things,  perhaps  almost 
resent  the  family's  solicitude  for  our  glasses,  slippers, 
cane,  overcoat,  diet,  and  quiet.  We  have  to  give  ever- 
increasing  time  and  attention  to  health  and  to  nursing 
ourselves  and  in  many  exceptional  experiences  feel  that 
we  are  seeing  persons  and  may  be  doing  things  for  the 
last  time.  All  our  plans  and  efforts  and  prospects  directed 
toward  the  future  have  a  new  element  of  uncertainty 
and  tentativeness.  We  can  easily  be  spoiled  by  kindness 
or  soured  by  neglect  and  our  own  personality  requires 
so  much  attention  in  making  the  new  adjustments  that 
are  necessary  that  we  are  in  new  danger  of  becoming 
selfish;  while  our  nerves  are  liable  to  grow  irritable  and 
there  is  a  new  trend  to  depressive  states  as  our  activities 
abate. 

It  is  not  strange  that  one  of  our  grievous  dangers 
is  patheticism.  One  who  begins  to  suspect  waning  love 
on  the  part  of  those  in  his  sphere  may  come  to  accept 
and  even  crave  pity  in  its  place  and  farther  on  in  the 
infirmities  of  age  a  husband  or  wife  may  do  the  same 
368 


SOME  CONCLUSIONS 

and  magnify  to  their  partner  ailments  and  symptoms  to 
this  end.  A  little  farther  yet  in  this  direction  lies  what 
may  be  called  the  hysteria  of  senescents.  We  may  come 
to  love  to  be  waited  on  more  than  is  needful  and  thus 
grow  into  a  fictive  helplessness  and  dependence  on  the 
ministrations  of  others.  We  love  to  pour  our  troubles 
into  sympathetic  ears  and  may  be  spoiled  by  the  too 
great  devotion  of  our  married  partner,  sons,  or  daugh- 
ters, whom  we  sometimes  permit  to  become  slaves 
not  only  to  our  infirmities  but  to  our  very  whims  and 
notions.  Who  has  not  known  old  people  otherwise  ex- 
cellent who  almost  seem  to  have  lived  by  the  precept 
of  never  doing  for  themselves  anything  they  can  get 
others  to  do  for  them.  There  are  fathers  who,  with 
no  thought  that  they  are  selfish,  monopolize  the  love 
and  services  of  their  daughters,  and  mothers  who  do 
the  same  of  grown  sons,  and  these  of  the  younger  gen- 
eration may  lavish  upon  their  parents  the  devotion  that 
was  meant  for  a  mate  or  a  family  of  their  own.  We 
know  that  marriage,  when  it  comes  to  such  people,  is 
likely  to  be  unhappy  unless  the  wife  is  in  the  image 
of  the  fondled  mother  or  the  husband  in  that  of  the  too 
much  loved  father.  We  are  prone  to  forget  that  for 
the  old,  as  truly  as  for  the  young,  it  is  more  blessed 
to  give  than  to  receive  and  that  we  must  not  insist  on 
our  rights  and  forget  that  each  has  its  corresponding 
duties.  The  old  are  rarely  oppressed  by  a  sense  of  grati- 
tude and  may  come  to  feel  that  because  they  have  reared 
their  children  they  have  laid  them  under  obligations  of 
a  return  service  that  can  never  be  fully  discharged,  for- 
getting that  beyond  certain  limits  they  pay  us  best  by 
rendering  the  same  service  not  to  us  but  to  their  own 
children.  Most  of  us  are  or  are  destined  to  become  a 
real  burden  and  this  we  should  strive  to  delay  and  lighten 
and  not  to  accelerate  or  increase,  and  we  should  not  come 
to  make  a  luxury  of  our  sense  of  dependence.  Thus  if 

369 


SENESCENCE 

the  old  have  savings,  however  small,  they  should  never 
expropriate  but  retain  and  use  them  wherever  and  when 
their  help  will  be  most  serviceable.  The  fact  that  we 
have  withdrawn  from  larger  outside  activities  naturally 
inclines  us  to  strive  to  be  of  compensatingly  more  ac- 
count in  the  smaller  circle  left  us  but  this  must  not  make 
us  arbitrary  in  this  narrowed  field  for  self-assertion  and 
we  should  not  feel  that  as  we  become  less  important 
to  the  world  we  must  become  more  so  within  the  family 
circle.  We  have,  in  fact,  a  new  place  and  must  exert 
ourselves  to  learn  and  keep  it,  without  interference  with 
those  who  are  taking  ours  or  making  their  own  careers. 
In  his  dealings  with  such  cases  the  physician  needs  a 
special  sagacity.  He  must  realize  the  great  satisfaction 
it  gives  his  aged  patients  to  have  him  listen  patiently 
and  sympathetically  to  all  their  ills  and  should  encourage 
them  to  trust  him  fully  and  with  no  reservations.  This 
not  only  shields  others  but  by  humoring  the  wise  doctor 
can  not  only  gain  full  confidence  but  may  be  able  to 
bring  such  patients  to  see  their  own  selfishness  and  thus 
effect  a  real  cure  even  in  their  physical  condition.  I 
have  known  cases  where  such  ministrations  were  a  bene- 
diction to  the  family.  Where  old  patients  have  thus 
built  up  a  system  of  half-fancied  ailments,  placeboes 
may  work  wonders,  the  therapy  being  in  fact  chiefly 
mental.  Such  insidious  dangers  to  which  the  aged  are 
exposed  cannot  be  reached  by  medicaments  but  rather 
by  pithiatism  in  the  sense  of  Babinski  or  persuasion  in 
the  sense  of  Dubois,  Merchenowsky,  Rosenbach,  or  Her- 
bert Hall,  who  heal  by  prescribing  activities,  physical 
and  mental,  found  possible  after  painstaking  analysis. 
The  old  often  feel  a  falsetto  invalidism  that  may  be 
cured  by  a  vigorous  appeal  to  their  moral  sense  or, 
again  by  changes  in  their  daily  program  or  regimen 
or  by  exposing  them  to  fresh  streams  of  rich  outer  im- 
pressions that  correct  the  mental  stagnation  to  which 

370 


SOME  CONCLUSIONS 

they  are  prone  or  keep  their  attention  from  themselves 
by  giving  their  minds  a  larger  field  and  a  far-off  focus, 
as  against  their  inveterate  tendency  to  mental  short- 
sightedness. 

In  youth  erotic  fetishes  and  pet,  instinctive  aversions 
are  now  known  to  play  an  important  if  half-unconscious 
role  in  love  between  the  sexes.  Eyes,  hair,  lips,  cheek, 
neck,  or  any  of  her  little  ways  of  movement  or  speech 
may  become  a  focus  of  special  charm  to  the  young  amor- 
ist. Conversely,  other  or  even  the  same  features,  traits, 
automatisms,  or  habits  may  mediate  no  less  unconscious 
dislike.1  Some  of  the  same  rapports  or  repulsions  exist 
between  the  old  and  the  young.  The  former  may  even 
have  their  favorite  children  or  grandchildren  and  dis- 
like others  in  ways  they  themselves  could  only  inade- 
quately justify.  This  partiality  is  most  pronounced  be- 
tween fathers  and  daughters,  mothers  and  sons.  It  is 
the  chief  factor  not  only  in  what  is  called  love  at  first 
sight  but  of  first  impressions  of  strangers,  which  are 
proverbially  so  hard  to  efface.  Thus  what  we  deem 
trifles  may  loom  large. 

The  old  are  particularly  prone  to  develop  peculiarities 
which,  if  they  do  not  unconsciously  alienate  those  near- 
est and  perhaps  dearest  to  them,  are  real  handicaps  to 
their  devotion.  Of  this  the  old  are  rarely  aware,  and  if 
attention  is  called  to  them  they  minimize  their  impor- 
tance. These  might  be  listed  and  weighed  like  their 
analogues  in  the  erotic  field.  The  roster  of  them  on 
the  negative  side  would  be  long.  There  are  faults  in 
table  manners,  modes  of  eating  and  drinking,  using  table 
utensils  from  the  napkin  on,  etc.  Mastication  may  be 
noisy  or  otherwise  subtly  disagreeable,  or  there  is  slob- 
bering, clumsiness,  or  neglect  of  common  conventionali- 
ties once  observed.  The  toilet  may  be  neglected,  the 
attire  soiled  or  spotted  or  imperfectly  put  on,  and  so  a 

1  See  my  Adolescence,  vol.  ii,  p.  113  et  seq. 
371 


SENESCENCE 

look-over  needed  before  we  go  out.  We  do  things  or 
make  noises  in  the  presence  of  others  that  once  we  only 
permitted  ourselves  when  alone  and  there  is  a  new  indif- 
ference to  personal  appearance.  The  voice  is  impaired 
in  volume,  richness  of  inflection,  and  articulation;  our 
face  or  form  are  no  longer  aesthetic  objects ;  we  mislay 
things  and  invoke  those  about  us  to  help  find  them ;  and 
are  tediously  slow  in  mind  and  body.  If,  in  addition 
to  all  this,  we  become  pryingly  overcurious,  fault-finding, 
exact,  and  forgetful,  we  give  our  friends  more  to  put 
up  with  than  we  realize,  and  the  best  of  them  would  be 
shocked  if  they  became  conscious  of  how  much  they 
repress  in  their  psychic  attitude  toward,  if  not  in  their 
treatment  of  us.  On  all  such  matters  we  should  make 
frequent  self-surveys.  On  the  other  hand,  if  we  cul- 
tivate not  only  order  and  control  but,  above  all,  the  poise 
and  repose  of  those  seeking  the  Great  Peace,  striving 
always  to  do,  be,  and  say  only  our  best  things,  we 
may  make  ourselves  not  only  respected  but  loved  in 
a  new  way,  so  that  we  shall  be  turned  to  not  only 
for  advice  but  for  companionship  and  help  in  emergen- 
cies and  make  some  of  even  the  most  obtrusive  signs 
of  physical  decay  attractive  by  association  with  the 
higher  qualities  of  soul,  as  the  ugliness  of  Socrates  came 
to  be  almost  loved  by  his  disciples.  Art  understands  this 
and  many  of  its  masterpieces  depict  old  age  in  its  glory. 
The  same  is  true  of  literature  and  even  of  the  drama, 
despite  the  fact  that  actors  who  specialize  in  old  women's 
and  particularly  old  men's  parts  so  often  make  age  re- 
pulsive and  ridiculous,  for  it  has  always  been  a  most 
attractive  field  for  caricature. 

The  old  are  subject  to  certain  fluctuations,  new  in 
kind,  degree,  or  both.  Sleep  is  less  regular.  They  have 
good  and  bad  nights,  one  or  more  of  each  alternating, 
which  make  the  next  day  clear  or  cloudy  with  dregs. 
If  fatigue  comes  more  quickly,  so  does  recuperation  by 
372 


SOME  CONCLUSIONS 

rest.  They  are  often  refreshed  by  a  very  brief  nap  or 
by  recumbency,  or  even  by  a  period  of  solitude  during 
the  day.  Thus  on  the  periodicity  of  day  and  night  is 
superposed  one  of  less  amplitude  or  briefer  duration, 
perhaps  after  one  or  each  meal.  Thus  the  distinction 
between  the  sleeping  and  waking  state  comes  to  be  less 
sharp,  slumber  is  not  so  deep  or  long,  and  the  dreamy 
states  of  reverie  invade  mentation  by  day.  The  great 
restorer  does  not  quite  make  losses  good  and  the  ac- 
cumulation of  these  deficits  explains  very  many  of  the 
phenomena  of  old  age,  which  might  be  characterized  as 
sleepiness  for  death,  the  rest  that  is  complete  and  knows 
no  waking.  Capitulation  to  the  siesta  habit  is  marked 
in  some  by  a  distinct  improvement  of  condition.  They 
speak  of  a  new  balance  between  activity  and  repose  and 
sleep  all  the  better  nights,  while  others  resist  such  tam- 
perings  with  nature's  rhythm  and  if  they  acquire  the 
midday  habit  find  themselves  nervous  or  less  refreshed 
the  morning  after.  Some  retire  and  rise  with  the  sun 
and  find  a  certain  elation  of  spirits  in  this  reversion  to 
nature  and  praise  the  morning  hour  or  even  sunrise, 
of  which  the  urbanized  world  about  them  knows  little 
and  ever  less;  while  others  find  a  virtue  in  lying  abed 
late.  While  we  know  too  little  of  the  hygiene  of  the 
aged  to  prescribe,  it  is  certain  that  they  tend  to  break 
with  the  old  regulations  and  really  need  some  of  the 
indulgences  they  are  often  too  inclined  to  permit  them- 
selves. 

The  appetites  fluctuate  and  may  readily  become  capri- 
cious. Some  would  eat  more  and  less  often  than  before 
and  love  to  experiment  with  new  viands.  Some  think 
some  items  of  diet  once  beneficial  become  harmful  and 
so  eliminate  them,  while  some  like  and  can  digest  things 
impossible  before.  Sometimes  they  indulge  for  days  or 
even  weeks  in  a  favorite  dish  that  at  intervals  they 
cannot  touch  with  impunity,  as  if  there  were  spells  of 

373 


SENESCENCE 

immunity  broken  by  intervals  during  which  the  same 
article  produces  deleterious  results.  One  says  that  what 
is  at  one  time  a  food  becomes  for  him  at  another  time 
a  poison.  This  seems  particularly  true  of  certain  fruits, 
while  the  acid  balance  seems  very  liable  to  upsets.  Most 
tend  to  overeat  and  are  always  struggling  with  their 
appetite.  Yet  they  often  have  periods  when  foods  lose 
their  attraction,  as  if  Nature  decreed  a  fast.  Here  she 
is  often  right  and  a  day  or  more  of  relative  or  even 
entire  abstinence  may  prove  helpful.  So  the  former  diet 
periods  do  not  need  to  be  observed;  nor  need  the  old 
be  coaxed  at  such  times  with  tempting  food. 

Springtime  is  hard  on  the  assimilative  processes  of 
all  but  especially  on  those  of  the  old.  This  is  partly 
because  the  tides  of  life  everywhere  set  toward  genesis 
rather  than  toward  individuation  but  still  more  because 
the  calorific  elements  of  food  need  to  be  essentially  re- 
duced and  also  because  winter's  supplies  grow  a  little 
stale  before  summer  ripens  her  produce.  So,  too,  with 
the  abated  activity  that  years  bring  the  need  of  food 
is  reduced  and  hence  the  old  can  often  thrive  on  a  small 
percentage  of  what  they  formerly  needed.  Most,  too, 
not  only  learn  to  avoid  hearty  meals  at  night  but  find 
it  best  to  lay  in  most  of  their  rations  earlier  in  the  day. 
Very  many  find  in  diet  their  chief  center  of  interest 
and  solicitude  and  the  most  active  theme  for  theoriza- 
tion,  so  that  in  many  cases  more  and  more  mentation 
seems  to  center  about  alimentary  functions.  There  are 
very  active  inductions  from  experience  and  constant 
modifications  of  views  hard  to  change  in  other  fields. 
There  does  seem  to  be  often  a  change  toward  either 
increased  sensitiveness  or  torpidity  of  the  alimentary 
tract.  A  few  grow  especially  susceptible  to  seasoning, 
condiments,  flavors,  and  even  confectionery.  They  may 
become  even  connoisseurs  in  wine,  tea,  coffee,  tobacco, 
while  others  grow  indifferent  and  insist  that  they  like 

374 


SOME  CONCLUSIONS 

and  can  eat  almost  anything.  Nutritive  ups  and  downs 
are  thus  more  marked  than  before.  Tendencies  to  de- 
crease in  weight  are  distinctly  more  favorable  for  pro- 
longed life  than  the  opposite  tendency  to  obesity.  In- 
deed, the  former  seems  normal. 

There  are  alternations  of  mood.  Depression  may  be 
acute  to-day  and  vanish  to-morrow,  depending  not  only 
upon  sleep  and  nutrition  but  the  weather  and  incidents, 
perhaps  trivialities,  in  the  environment.  Irritability 
may  alternate  with  apathy  and  the  old  may  lose  self- 
control  and  anon  exercise  a  high .  degree  of  it.  Some 
days  they  feel  comfortable  and  even  vigorous  and  on 
others  are  miserable.  Now  weak  organs  or  functions, 
heart,  stomach,  bowels,  rheumatism,  or  whatever  be  the 
besetting  troubles,  are  much  in  evidence  and  symptoms 
may  grow  dangerous  until  the  old  have  a  new  sense 
of  the  fragile  hold  they  have  upon  life,  which  may  end 
suddenly  in  some  of  these  weak  moments.  Then  these 
symptoms  intermit  and  they  feel  well  and  take  heart 
again  till  the  next  "spell."  A  few  never  allow  them- 
selves to  be  caught  without  some  one  or  more  trusted 
drugs  kept  handy  for  immediate  use  in  emergencies  and 
much,  too,  might  be  written  of  "warnings"  and  their 
sometimes  epochal  effects  upon  both  the  inner  and  outer 
life.  Thus  the  old  may  sometimes  give  way  to  their 
feelings  and  become  stormy,  lachrymose,  perhaps  even 
violent,  and  they  may  react  from  this  to  a  state  of  almost 
philosophic  poise,  which  passes  upon  even  their  own  out- 
breaks with  objective  detachment  and  psychological  in- 
terest, phenomena  that  we  may  call  the  "apologetics" 
of  old  age.  Thus  emotivity  and  reason  may  succeed 
each  other. 

The  old  are  very  dependent  upon  weather,  climate, 
and  seasons.  Winter  is  hardest  on  them.  Not  only  does 
it  mean  more  indoor  life  and  less  activity  but  cold  is 
one  of  the  chief  enemies  of  the  old  and  winter  is  also 

375 


SENESCENCE 

supercharged  with  subtle  and  profound  symbolisms  of 
their  own  stage  of  life  which  deploy  more  beneath  than 
above  the  threshold  of  their  consciousness.  What  old 
person  does  not  shudder  at  the  thought  of  being  buried 
in  snow  and  ice.  Even  the  autumn  is  for  them  full  of 
somber  analogies  of  the  stage  of  the  sere  and  falling 
leaves,  of  the  ripening  and  garnering  of  the  fruits  of 
the  earth,  of  the  first  blighting  frosts.  All  the  old  long 
for  the  rejuvenation  of  springtime  and  perhaps  day- 
dream of  it  when  nature  is  snowbound.  Some  keep 
diaries  of  wind,  temperature,  and  storm  and  become 
weather-wise,  while  those  who  can,  seek  warmer  climes, 
especially  when  winter  begins  to  break,  a  season  sta- 
tistics show  is  most  fatal  for  the  old.  The  poet  who 
sang  that  he  could  endure  anything  but  a  series  of  bad 
days  must  have  had  the  psychic  barometry  of  old  age. 
Thus  we  draw  nearer  to  nature,  our  source  and  our 
home. 

Even  sex  often  does  not  decline  and  die  without  ter- 
minal oscillations  in  its  course  and  in  extreme  cases 
apathy  and  aversion  may  alternate  with  abnormal  erotic 
outbreaks  dangerous  alike  to  the  health  of  the  individual, 
to  domestic  happiness,  and  even  to  public  morals.  Those 
who  have  led  lustful  lives  may  resort  to  unnatural  and 
illegal  forms  of  vice  and  thus  illustrate  the  various  per- 
versions of  this  function.  While  only  a  few  indulge 
in  orgies,  very  few  fail  to  note  occasional  spontaneous 
but  transient  calentures  here  suggestive  of  potency  long 
after  it  was  deemed  "closed  season."  Such  recru- 
descences, though  they  seem  to  be  nearly  always  only 
partial,  are  very  prone  to  deceive  and  may  lead  to  follies. 
Instead  of  being  indulged,  cultivated,  or  even  welcomed, 
as  by  an  inveterate  fallacy  too  prevalent  with  the  young 
they  too  often  are,  the  old  should  rigorously  ignore  and 
suppress  all  such  manifestations  in  this  field.  While  the 
full  realization  of  impotence  brings  a  psychalgia  all  its 
376 


SOME  CONCLUSIONS 

own,  it  also  has  physiological  and  psychological  if  not 
conscious  compensations,  while  belated  and,  especially, 
stimulated  activity  of  reproductive  functions  not  only 
can  never  result  in  offspring  of  value  to  the  world  but 
saps  vitality  and  accelerates  the  decay  of  every  secondary 
sex  quality  of  mind  and  body,  so  that  complete  chastity, 
psychic  and  somatic,  should  be  the  ideal  of  the  old.  They 
should  be  not  only  embodiments  of  purity  but  the  wisest 
of  all  counselors  in  this  field.  Only  to  those  in  whom 
asceticism  and  sublimation  have  done  their  perfect  work 
will  there  come  an  Indian  summer  of  calentures  for  the 
higher  ideals  of  life  and  mind,  while  those  who  fail  here 
can  never  know  the  true  and  consummate  joy  of  old  age. 
For  myself,  I  frankly  confess  that  the  longer  I  live 
the  more  I  want  to  keep  on  doing  so.  Hence  in  the  last 
two  years  of  retired  leisure  I  have  given  far  more  time 
and  attention  to  personal  hygiene,  regimen,  and  diet 
than  ever  before  and  have  mildly  experimented  with 
myself  in  many  ways.  I  have  tried  eating  two  and  four 
meals  daily,  going  early  and  late  to  bed,  forcing  myself 
to  lie  there  a  fixed  number  of  hours  and  at  certain  times 
again  retiring  and  rising  with  no  regularity  as  I  felt 
like  doing.  I  have  tried  systematic  rub-downs,  self- 
massage  ;  cold  and  warm,  frequent  and  infrequent  baths, 
have  equipped  a  modest  gymnasium  and  taken  mild  but 
systematic  exercises  with  various  apparatus  and  then 
abandoned  all  this  or  done  nothing  of  it  without  an 
inner  prompting.  I  have  followed  prescribed  diets  and 
tried  many  special  foods,  interested  myself  in  vitamines, 
beginning  with  Eddy's  manual  and  trying  out  vegex 
preparations,  although  no  one  has  as  yet  studied  the 
effects  of  any  of  the  three  species  of  vitamines  upon 
old  age,  as  has  been  done  for  other  stages  of  life.  I 
even  used  olive  oil,  which  so  many  of  my  correspondents 
praise  both  for  internal  and  external  application,  stopped 
smoking  for  a  week,  which  seemed  greatly  to  prolong 

377 


SENESCENCE 

each  day  after  thirty  years  of  mild  addition  to  nicotine, 
corrected  for  a  time  and  then  yielded  to  the  senescent's 
tendency  to  constipation,  experimented  with  alcohol  in 
several  forms,  even  with  Pohl's  spermine  tablets  and 
minimal  doses  of  phosphorus,  etc.  But  out  of  all  these 
moderate  hygienic  adventures  I  have  so  far  found  no 
topping  specific.  It  would  be  interesting  to  try  out  the 
gland-grafting  experiments  which  seem  to  have  regen- 
erated the  famous  Vienna  surgeon,  Lorenz,  and  others, 
and  I  think  I  would  gladly  offer  myself  as  a  corpus  vile 
for  the  Steinach  operation  to  study  its  psychological  ef- 
fects at  first  hand.  Although  I  have  found  in  the  above 
experiences  a  few  things  that  I  so  far  believe  helpful  to 
me,  I  have  derived  from  them  all  no  advice  to  offer 
others  except,  if  time  and  inclination  favor,  to  try  out 
all  things  for  themselves.  Plenty  of  moderate  exercise 
out  of  doors,  active  intellectual  interests,  both  just  to  the 
point  of  healthy  fatigue  but  no  more,  are  fundamental. 
One  must  have  insight  and  considerable  power  of  self- 
observation  to  profit  therefrom.  But  the  main  thing 
is  to  develop  and  maintain  at  its  highest  possible  morale 
a  rigorous  and  unremitting  hygienic  conscience  that  will 
never  let  down  but  always  enforce  the  doing  of  what 
we  know  to  be  best.  Otherwise  we  may  eat,  sleep,  work, 
and  generally  do  or  not  do  what  seems  best  as  we  list. 
I  am  even  skeptical  about  the  almost  universal  counsel 
for  tranquillity  and  against  worrying,  for  more  or  less 
anxiety  is  not  only  the  normal  lot  of  man  but  it  gives 
a  tonic  sense  of  responsibility  which  we  all  need. 

Special  forms  of  pleasure  that  have  to  be  prepared  for 
attract  us  less  but  we  find  soul-filling  satisfaction  in  just 
living,  contemplating  nature  wherever  we  happen  to  be, 
eating,  sleeping,  and  in  common  converse.  All  these 
things  acquire  a  charm  unknown  before,  while  "occa- 
sions," events,  and  sights  that  are  rare  and  afar  lose 
their  charm.  Thus  we  come  to  love  each  hour  of  each 

378 


SOME  CONCLUSIONS 

day  and  the  most  wonted  and  commonplace  experiences, 
while  our  work  (for  no  one  can  be  happy  without  some 
task)  even  though  it  seemed  drudgery  before  becomes 
attractive  because  we  can  do  it  when  and  as  we  will  and 
as  much  or  little  of  it  as  our  strength  permits  or  inclina- 
tion impels.  Meanwhile  friends  grow  nearer  and 
dearer,  enmities  fade,  and  we  enjoy  converse  with  those 
toward  whom  we  were  formerly  indifferent  or  even 
averse.  Thus  old  age  may  become  the  most  satisfying 
and  deeply  enjoyable  stage  of  life.  Hitherto  the  rest 
cures  we  prescribed  have  been  more  or  less  reversionary 
to  youthful  or  even  primitive  scenes  and  activities.  It 
may  be  that  this  is  wrong  and  that  for  all  such  cases  we 
should  prescribe  for  the  young  or  middle-aged  the  occu- 
pations, attitudes  and  regimen  of  the  old  and  that  this 
would  be  more  therapeutic. 

Sensations  and  movements  are  the  basis  of  mind  and 
when  these  are  reduced,  as  in  old  age,  we  often  have 
the  phenomena  of  mental  starvation  because  the  supplies 
of  mental  pabulum  are  lowered.  If  the  old  have  little 
society  and  do  not  read,  their  psychic  powers  of  digest- 
ing their  experience  run  down,  not  from  any  inherent 
weakness  but  because  they  are  on  short  rations  for  data. 
The  mills  could  often  grind  as  fine  and  as  much  as  ever, 
and  possibly  more  so,  but  the  grist  is  lacking.  Thus 
there  are  two  opposite  trends  in  the  old.  On  the  one 
hand,  their  physical  state  demands  attention  to  them- 
selves so  that  they  tend  to  have  "too  much  ego"  in  their 
cosmos,  grow  subjective,  and  may  become  hypochon- 
driacal  or  preoccupied  with  their  own  personal  problems. 
The  simple  decree  of  nature  is  that  we  must  give  more 
care  to  our  health  and  morale  and  it  is  excess,  defect, 
or  perversion  of  this  deep  instinct  that  causes  so  many 
of  our  pains  and  our  ill  repute.  Here  lies  our  chief  need 
of  personal  study,  psychoanalysis,  and  reeducation.  The 
other  trend  is  in  the  opposite  direction,  toward  deper- 

379 


SENESCENCE 

sonalization.  We  need  to  look  out,  not  in;  to  forget 
self  and  to  be  absorbed  in  objectives.  We  are  impelled 
to  escape  our  environment  and  interest  ourselves  in 
things  that  are  remote  in  space  and  time,  in  nature,  the 
stars,  great  causes  and  events,  personalities,  master- 
pieces, to  escape  from  our  miserable  selves  by  their  con- 
templation. We  cannot  see  the  countenance  of  things 
for  their  soul.  It  is  this  fugue  from  self  that  perhaps 
impels  us  to  so  many  of  our  petty  pastimes  and  diver- 
sions :  solitaire,  idle  reveries,  our  predilection  for  amuse- 
ments, fussiness  about  our  things;  as  well  as,  on  the 
negative  side,  to  neglect  our  person,  really  of  dwindling 
value  in  the  great  world  and  soon  to  be  effaced.  All 
these  phenomena  are  outcrops  of  the  tendency  by  which 
"the  individual  withers  and  the  world  is  more  and  more," 
for  our  fate  is  depersonalization  and  resumption  into 
nature.  These  symptoms  are  anticipations  of  euthanasia 
or,  to  use  a  phrase  now  current  in  psychology,  they  are 
extrovertive  and  not  introvertive,  just  as  the  old  were 
meant  to  be. 

Thus  the  old  need  a  higher  kind  and  degree  of  self- 
knowledge  than  they  have  yet  attained.  They  need  to 
be  individually  studied  and  analyzed  to  avoid  the  new, 
peculiar,  and  not  yet  understood  dementia  praecox  now 
so  liable  to  supervene  upon  the  youth  of  age.  This  is 
all  the  more  needful  now  that  the  intensity  of  modern 
life  with  its  industrial  and  managerial  strain  compels 
earlier  withdrawal  from  its  strenuosities.  We  live 
longer  and  also  begin  to  retire  earlier,  so  that  senescence 
is  lengthening  at  both  ends.  Hence,  again,  the  need  of 
midwives  to  bring  us  into  the  new  world  of  higher  sanity 
now  possible  to  ever  more  of  us.  Both  we  and  our 
civilization  now  so  checked,  disoriented,  and  misled  by 
immaturities  are  in  such  crying  need  of  a  higher  leader- 
ship that  is  not  forthcoming!  We  are  suffering  chiefly 
from  unripeness.  The  human  stock  is  not  maturing  as 


SOME  CONCLUSIONS 

it  should.  Life  is  so  complicated  that  the  years  of  ap- 
prenticeship are  ever  longer  and  harder,  so  that  we  are 
exhausted  ere  we  become  master  workmen  in  our  craft 
and  the  rapid  age  turnover  this  involves  robs  us  of  too 
many  of  the  choicest  fruits  of  experience. 

Our  retirement,  even  if  gradual  and  not  dated,  calls 
attention  to  our  age,  and  to  our  little  world  we  grow 
old  a  decade  the  day  it  learns  that  we  have  stepped  aside 
while  to  ourselves  we  may  and  ought  to  feel  that  we 
grow  young  that  day  by  yet  more.  The  springtide  of 
a  new  stage  of  life  stirs  our  pulses  and  we  feel  some- 
thing of  the  care-free  happiness  of  another  childhood. 
Our  intimates  often  remark  signs  of  a  new  vitality, 
physical  and  mental.  If  we  are  normal  and  not  too 
spent,  we  feel  new  hopes,  ambitions,  make  plans  to  sur- 
pass our  old  selves  and  to  at  last  be,  do,  say,  enjoy  sortye- 
thing  really  worth  while.  As  we  pass  our  life  in  review, 
stage  by  stage,  up  to  the  present,  it  seems  so  incomplete, 
fragmentary,  tentative,  and  altogether  unsatisfying  that 
we  almost  wonder  whether  it  was  we  ourselves  who 
really  lived  it  or  someone  else  whose  career  we  are  fol- 
lowing with  an  objective  detachment  never  felt  before 
toward  our  own  ego.  Certain  it  is  that  a  new  veil  falls 
between  us  and  our  past,  gauzy  and  transparent  though 
it  be.  Our  psychic  nature  did  not  intend  us  for  the  role 
of  reminiscence  so  persistently  assigned  to  and  so  com- 
monly accepted  by  us.  Our  juvenile  memories  are  but 
the  ragbag  vestiges  of  a  vaster  experience  that  had  to 
be  forgotten  to  be  completely  incorporated  in  our  per- 
sonality and  to  ascribe  too  much  significance  to  them 
is  the  fetishism  of  senility.  If  we  write  up  our  lives, 
we  can  make  them  interesting  and  valuable  only  by 
using  our  better  information  about  and  more  sympathetic 
rapport  with  ourselves  with  the  same  impartiality  that 
a  close  and  discerning  friend  would  do  if  he  had  all  our 
data.  It  is  for  the  things  of  the  present  and  for  the 

381 


SENESCENCE 

problems  of  the  future  that  our  mental  vision  becomes 
clearer  than  ever  before.  Our  wish  and  will  to  achieve 
and  make  our  insights  known  and  prevail  acquire  new 
force. 

How  different  we  find  old  age  from  what  we  had 
expected  or  observed  it  to  be ;  how  little  there  is  in  com- 
mon between  what  we  feel  toward  it  and  the  way  we 
find  it  regarded  by  our  juniors;  and  how  hard  it  is  to 
conform  to  their  expectations  of  us!  They  think  we 
have  glided  into  a  peaceful  harbor  and  have  only  to  cast 
anchor  and  be  at  rest.  We  feel  that  we  have  made 
landfall  on  a  new  continent  where  we  must  not  only 
disembark  but  explore  and  make  new  departures  and 
institutions  and  give  a  better  interpretation  to  human 
life.  Instead  of  descending  toward  a  deep,  dark  valley 
we  stand,  in  fact,  before  a  delectable  mountain,  from 
the  summit  of  which,  if  we  can  only  reach  it,  we  can 
view  the  world  in  a  clearer  light  and  in  truer  perspective 
than  the  race  has  yet  attained.  It  is  all  only  a  question 
of  strength  and  endurance.  That  is  the  great  and  only 
but,  when  we  squarely  face  it,  a  staggering  proviso.  In 
all  essentials  we  are  better  and  more  fit  than  ever  before 
save  only  for  the  curse  of  fatigability,  for  age  and  death 
are  nothing  but  fatigue  advancing  and  finally  conquer- 
ing life.  One  single  example  of  a  hale  old  man  dowered 
by  nature  and  nurture,  as  immune  from  tire  as  youth 
is,  would  give  the  world  a  new  idea  of  senectitude. 

We  were  told  that  the  days  and  years  pass  more 
quickly  as  we  advance  in  age.  What  could  be  more  false ! 
Not  only  do  the  nights,  of  which  sound  sleep  once  made 
us  unconscious,  often  drag  slowly  through  their  watches 
but  each  day  is  so  long  that  we  often  find  time  hanging 
heavily  on  our  hands;  and  when  we  have  done  all  the 
work  we  can,  we  turn  to  our  friends  to  amuse  us  and 
seek  and  perhaps  invent  pastimes  or  fresh  occupations 
to  kill  it.  Sermons,  lectures,  meetings  of  all  kinds,  even 

382 


SOME  CONCLUSIONS 

the  drama,  seem  long.  The  winter  lingers  until  we 
almost  fear  that  spring  will  never  come  or  out-of-doors 
attract  us  again.  When  we  have  to  wait  for  things 
the  time  stretches  as  if  there  were  no  limit  to  its  elas- 
ticity, and  when  we  turn  to  reveries  of  the  past,  it  is 
a  last  resort  from  the  tedium  vitae.  We  really  have 
time  for  anything  and  to  spare.  It  is  the  demon  fatigue 
that  makes  us  so  in  love  with  diversion,  for  rest  is  more 
and  more  frequently  sought  and  found  in  change. 

They  say  our  emotional  life  is  damped.  True,  we  are 
more  immune  from  certain  great  passions  and  our  affec- 
tivity  is  very  differently  distributed.  But  what  lessons 
of  repression  we  have  to  learn!  If  the  fires  of  youth 
are  banked  and  smouldering  they  are  in  no  wise  ex- 
tinguished and  perhaps  burn  only  the  more  fiercely  in- 
wardly because  they  cannot  vent  themselves,  as  even  the 
Lange-James  theory  admits  for  repressed  feelings,  inhi- 
bition of  which  really  only  makes  them  more  intense. 
We  get  scant  credit  for  the  self-control  that  restrains 
us  from  so  much  we  feel  impelled  to  say  and  do  and 
if  we  break  out,  it  is  ascribed  not  to  its  true  caifee  in 
outer  circumstance  but  to  the  irritability  thought  char- 
acteristic of  our  years.  Age  has  the  same  right  to  emo- 
tional perturbations  as  youth  and  is  no  whit  less  exposed 
and  disposed  to  them.  Here,  as  everywhere,  we  are 
misunderstood  and  are  in  such  a  feeble  minority  that  we 
have  to  incessantly  renounce  our  impulsions.  Marie 
Bashkirtseff  has  betrayed  the  secret  of  how  the  pubescent 
girl,  and  Karin  Michaelis,  of  how  the  woman  of  forty 
feels,  but  no  one  has  ever  attempted  to  explain  the  senti- 
mental nature  of  aging  men  or  women.  Even  Solomon 
and  Omar  Khayyam  presented  only  the  negations  and 
not  the  reaffirmations  of  the  will-to-live. 

Thus  it  is  no  wonder  if  the  old  often  best  illustrate 
what  Henri  Bordeaux  describes  as  "the  fear  of  living." 
Rene  Doumic  thinks  that  there  is  a  new  disease  in 

383 


SENESCENCE 

our  old  civilization  and  that  many  in  their  prime  only 
make  a  pretense  of  living.  "We  value  our  peace  above 
everything  and  wish  to  keep  it  at  all  hazards,  however 
dearly  we  must  pay  for  it.  We  shun  responsibilities, 
avoid  risks  and  chances  of  struggle,  flee  from  adventure 
and  danger,  seek  to  escape  from  everything  that  makes 
for  the  charm  and  value  of  life.  We  no  longer  have 
any  faith  in  the  future  because  we  no  longer  have  faith 
in  ourselves."  How  well  this  applies  to  those  brought 
face  to  face  with  the  last  stage  of  life !  The  fact  is,  we 
must  find  and  make  new  pleasures  as  well  as  new  modes 
of  escaping  and  mitigating  the  pains  of  body  and  mind 
and  must  learn  anew  how  to  love,  hate,  fear,  be  angry, 
pity,  and  sympathize  aright.  The  serenity  ascribed  to 
us  would  pall  and  bring  stagnation.  It  is  a  profound 
psychological  truth  that  "out  of  the  heart  are  the  issues 
of  life"  and  our  heart  is  not  dead;  on  the  contrary, 
emotivity  probably  increases  with  years  and  most  ex- 
pressions of  it,  unless  they  become  more  sublimated, 
strongly  tend  to  grow  more  crass  and  stormy.  We  were 
never  more  interested  in  things,  persons,  events,  causes, 
in  life  itself.  Slights  rankle,  neglect  chills,  attentions 
warm,  affronts  incense,  and  praise  thrills  us,  and  if  we 
grow  censorious,  it  is  because  our  ideals  of  conduct  and 
motive  have  become  higher  and  purer  and  we  are  in  a 
greater  hurry  to  see  them  realized.  We  cannot  help 
these  gropings  toward  a  new  dispensation  and  their  very 
persistence  is  the  best  reason  for  believing  that  they 
will  sometime  find  their  goal  in  a  better  stage  of  things 
and  an  improved  race  of  men  not  in  another  world  but 
here.  Perhaps  some  of  even  what  we  now  call  the 
whimsies  of  the  old  will  be  seen  to  be  the  labor  pains 
of  humanity,  which  is  striving  thus  to  surpass  itself,  to 
improve  the  stock,  and  to  really  bring  in  a  new  and 
higher  type  of  man. 

Old  age  is  called  second  childhood.    This  is  all  wrong 

384 


SOME  CONCLUSIONS 

for  there  is  nothing  rejuvenative  about  it.  Childhood 
is  the  most  active,  healthful,  buoyant,  and  intuitive  stage 
of  life;  age,  the  least  so.  What  is  there  really  common 
to  the  morning  and  evening  of  life?  We  even  lose  much 
of  the  power  we  once  had  to  understand  children  and 
if  we  love  them,  we  want  them  at  a  distance,  while  they 
in  turn  understand  and  like  us  little  by  nature.  They 
inherit  far  less  of  the  results  of  experience  with  grand- 
parents than  with  parents,  for  less  of  us  have  survived 
to  see  them  and  the  latter  often  resent  or  even  criticise 
our  relations  to  them.  We  are  nearly  as  immune  to  their 
prevailing  faults  as  to  their  diseases.  They  listen  to 
our  stories  but  do  not  crave  our  cuddling,  are  jealous 
if  we  usurp  the  offices  of  their  parents  to  them  and  are 
usually  a  little  less  free  in  our  presence.  Nature  has 
established  an  old  and  close  rapport  between  one  genera- 
tion and  the  next.  Even  young  teachers  get  on  best  with 
young,  old  with  maturer  pupils.  M.  L.  Reymert2  says  that 
his  general  study  shows  him  that  teachers  below  twenty 
and  over  forty  are  of  less  influence  than  teachers  between 
these  ages.  The  most  efficient  man  teacher  is  generally 
from  25  to  35.  The  best  woman  teacher  has  a  little  wider 
range — say,  20  to  40.  But  of  course  mental  and 
physiological  age  are  different.  Helen  M.  Downey  "Old 
and  Young  Teachers,"  Fed.  Sent.,,  June,  1918,  concludes, 
on  the  basis  of  questionnaire  data,  that  the  younger 
teacher  has  other  interests  that  keep  her  bright  and  cheer- 
ful ;  the  older  teacher  excels  in  mental  and  the  younger  in 
dispositional  traits;  the  old  are  careless  of  appearance 
and  this  does  not  appeal  to  children;  the  older  rule  by 
discipline,  not  by  love  and  kindness;  the  young  teacher 
more  often  overtaxes  her  strength;  the  old  are  more 
set  in  methods,  fixed  in  opinions,  resent  suggestions  for 
improvement.  Many  suggest  there  should  be  an  age 

1  "The  Psychology  of  the  Teacher,"  Fed.  Sent.,  vol.  24,  p.  531  et  seq. 
385 


SENESCENCE 

limit  of  60.  Health  and  temper  suffer.  There  are  often 
negative  psychic  idiosyncrasies.  Older  teachers  lose 
contact.  Social  traits  are  a  very  great  factor  in  con- 
sideration of  the  period  of  rapid  growth.  Dispositional 
qualities  are  more  impressive  than  any  other.  The 
favorite  teacher  is  enthusiastic,  energetic,  young.  Pu- 
pils' estimates  do  not  involve  age  when  they  speak  of 
old  and  young.  I  know  an  old  and  successful  professor, 
interested  in  his  work  to  the  end,  who,  when  he  retired 
with  powers  little  abated  and  much  work  yet  to  be  com- 
pleted, found  that  in  his  speech  and  writing  he  imagined 
himself  as  no  longer  addressing  minds  in  the  student, 
even  graduate,  stage,  but  wished  to  be  at  home  teaching 
and  learning  from  those  not  under  forty,  for  at  that  age 
real  wisdom  begins,  the  effects  of  special  training  having 
then  faded.  A  refocalization  took  place  in  his  mind 
that  involved  not  only  new  methods  but,  yet  more,  new 
topics  and  subject  matter.  What  student,  however  ma- 
ture, would  care  for  and  what  curriculum  in  any  univer- 
sity in  the  world  would  include,  for  example,  the  theme 
of  this  volume.  And  who  but  a  Greis  would  ever  have 
found  its  preparation  a  fascinating  task!  No,  the  old 
are  not  childish  but,  if  they  are  normal,  have  simply 
reached  a  stage  of  postmaturity  that  involves  much  of 
what  Nietzsche  called  the  transvaluation  of  all  values. 

But  if  we  can  no  longer  see  over  the  crest  of  the 
divide  that  separates  age  from  youth,  if  the  acclivity  is 
shut  off,  we  do  see  more  nearly  and  clearly  each  step 
of  the  declivity  and  find  the  catabasis  of  life  no  less 
zestful  than  its  anabasis  was  in  its  time,  while  we  have 
the  great  advantage  that  comes  from  the  power  of  being 
able  to  compare  the  two  and  this  itself  opens  rich  mines 
of  thought.  The  age  of  the  sage  has  bid  a  final  adieu 
not  only  to  all  puerilities  but  to  the  callow  ardors  of  the 
ephebic  stage.  He  is  graduated  from  adulthood  and 
turns,  as  by  an  eschatological  instinct,  to  ultimate  human 
386 


SOME  CONCLUSIONS 

problems,  of  which  younger  minds,  though  they  may  be 
attracted  to  them,  can  have  only  premonitions.  To  hear 
and  heed  this  call  is  the  strength  and  glory  of  those 
who  are  complete  "grown-ups."  The  trouble  with  man- 
kind in  general  is  that  it  has  not  yet  grown  up.  Its  faults, 
which  we  see  on  every  hand,  and  the  blunders  that  make 
so  large  a  part  of  history  are  those  of  immaturity.  Man 
has  always  felt  the  need  of  guardianship  and  because  he 
lacked  wisdom  invented  immortal  omniscient  gods — 
tribal,  national,  or  cosmic — to  guide  him  and  as  embodi- 
ments of  what  he  felt  lacking  in  himself.  It  is  just 
this  need  of  an  all-wise  providence  that  the  old  will  come 
to  supply  if  and  as  humanity  slowly  ripens. 

If  and  so  far  as  it  is  true  that  a  woman  is  as  old  as 
she  looks  and  a  man  as  he  feels,  all  this  processional, 
especially  its  early  stages,  is,  on  the  whole,  probably 
much  harder  for  her  than  for  him.  She  feels  not  only 
that  "the  coming  of  the  crow's  foot  means  the  going 
of  the  beau's  foot,"  but  the  first  wrinkles  about  the 
mouth,  eyes,  or  under  the  chin ;  the  loss  of  fullness  about 
the  neck,  to  which  folklore  attributes  such  significance; 
the  first  sagging  of  the  cheeks  or  the  bust ;  the  first  signs 
of  fading  complexion;  or  the  first  gray  hair,  give  her 
bitter  food  for  thought.  Her  cult  of  the  mirror,  that 
man  progressively  eschews,  increases.  But  woman  com- 
mands far  more  resources  against  all  such  heralds  of 
decay  than  man  and  gives  vastly  more  time  to  com- 
pensating for  them.  Youth  is  her  glory  and  she  has 
more  comeliness  to  lose  than  man,  who  can,  however, 
never  quite  rival  the  hag  in  ugliness.  She  has  also  great 
powers  of  compensation  by  affecting  girlish  ways  and 
has  a  stronger  hold  on  her  youth  than  man  and  old 
women  do  not  feel  as  old  as  old  men  do.  Throughout 
married  life,  if  she  is  well,  woman  usually  assumes  the 
role  of  the  younger  mate,  even  though  she  be  not  so  in 
years.  Though  sexual  involution  comes  to  her  earlier 

387 


SENESCENCE 

she  remains  in  far  more  sympathetic  touch  with  the 
young  than  her  husband,  so  that  there  is  a  half  truth 
and  not  mere  gallantry  in  the  saying  that  a  woman  never 
grows  old. 

The  woman  just  beginning  to  feel  passe  has  a 
psychology  all  her  own  of  which  even  the  devotees  of 
that  science  know  little  and  she  herself  yet  less,  but  of 
which  Michaelis  in  "The  Dangerous  Age"  has  given  us 
a  few  glimpses.  Love,  wifehood,  and  motherhood,  as 
the  world  knows,  constitute  the  very  heart  of  woman's 
life  and  as  the  chance  of  these  supreme  felicities  begins 
to  fade,  something,  which  it  is  no  extravagance  to  call 
desperation,  begins  to  supervene.  Its  processes  may  and 
often  do  deploy  so  deep  in  the  subconscious  regions  of 
the  soul  that  even  she  is  but  little  aware  of  the  trans- 
formations that  are  taking  place  there.  These  she  quite 
commonly  ignores,  camouflages,  or  honestly  and  resent- 
fully denies.  The  psychopathologist  sees  most  clearly 
the  tragedies  of  aborted  Eros  as  they  are  writ  large  in 
morbid  symptoms.  But  with  the  same  causes  and  condi- 
tions, the  same  processes  are  always  more  or  less  active, 
however  repressed,  and  the  unmated  woman  before  the 
close  of  the  third  decennium  has  generally  come  to  some 
terms  with  the  death  of  the  phyletic  instinct  within  her, 
which  is  the  core  and  mainspring  of  her  life,  and  has 
dimly  anticipated  all  the  significance  of  old  age. 

Happily  for  her  dawning  senescence,  it  is  one  of  the 
great  achievements  of  our  age  that  she  has  found  a 
splendid  vicarious  function  in  culture  and  new  social, 
vocational,  professional,  and  political  services,  so  that 
she  can  now  give  to  mankind  much  that  is  best  in  her 
that  was  once  confined  to  the  narrower  sphere  of 
domestic  life,  and  be  little  or  none  the  worse  but  perhaps 
the  better  for  it.  This  great  emancipation  is  building  a 
new  and  higher  story  to  her  life,  so  that  as  the  amative, 
heyday  charm  of  her  youth  begins  to  abate  she  need 

388 


SOME  CONCLUSIONS 

no  longer  despair.  All  her  earlier  occupational  training 
that  fits  her  for  self-support,  complete  or  even  partial, 
is,  thus,  anticipatory  of  this  third  new  stage  of  life  that 
the  senium  now  begins  to  reveal  to  her.  This  gives  her 
now  a  certain  advantage  over  man.  Thus  she  has  found 
a  new  call  that  means  not  only  more  safety  but  priceless 
service,  to  which  all  her  superfluous  energies  can  be 
devoted,  and  the  world  now  waits  with  an  eagerness 
that  is  almost  suspense  to  see  whether  she  will  have  the 
courage  to  grapple  with  the  most  vital  problems  that 
confront  her  sex  and  find  the  wisdom  to  solve  them  or, 
neglecting  these,  be  content  with  the  effort  to  do  man's 
work  in  man's  ways. 

Thus,  woman  is  older  than  man  in  the  same  sense 
that  the  child  is  older  than  the  adult,  because  her  quali- 
ties are  more  generic  and  she  is  nearer  to  and  a  better 
representative  of  the  race  than  he  and  also  in  that  she 
sublimates  sex  earlier  and  more  completely,  entering  the 
outer  shadows  of  senectitude  in  the  thirties.  But  she  is 
also,  at  the  same  time,  younger  than  he  in  that  she  is 
less  differentiated  in  tissues  or  traits,  less  specialized 
and  in  her  early  decades  must  learn  better  than  he  to 
conserve  so  much  that  is  best  in  the  physique  and  esprit 
of  her  youth.  If  her  physiological  change,  when  it 
comes,  is  more  marked,  abrupt,  and  datable,  the  psychic 
changes  she  undergoes  are  far  more  gradual  and  imper- 
ceptible, while  her  sympathy  with  youth  and  even  child- 
hood, and  in  general  not  only  her  moral  but  all  her  nor- 
mal instincts,  which  are  the  best  gift  the  adolescent  stage 
of  life  has  to  offer,  are  keener  and  surer. 

This  critical  age  has  its  own  peculiar  temptations  to 
which  woman  entering  middle  life  sometimes  succumbs. 
She,  like  man,  is  prone  to  ask  of  the  future  whether 
it  is  all  to  be  like  the  present  or  past  and,  if  so,  what  is 
to  become  of  the  unfulfilled  dreams  of  youth.  The 
Prince  Charming  never  came;  or  perhaps  her  ideal  has 
389 


SENESCENCE 

proven  only  a  clay  image;  or  her  affection,  or  his,  may 
have  found  another  focus  that  seems  worthier.  Hence 
it  is  in  no  wise  strange  that  some  women,  hitherto  good 
by  the  old  standards,  now  make  a  break  with  their  past, 
impelled  to  do  so  by  an  augmented  desire  to  taste  all 
the  joys  of  life  before  it  is  forever  too  late.  Not  only 
does  it  seem  intolerable  to  go  on  to  the  end  as  they  are 
but  there  is  perhaps  some  tempter  who  detects  and 
waters  these  seeds  of  discontent  and  helps  the  middle- 
aged  woman  on  to  feel  that  she  has  been  a  coward  to 
life.  Beaudelaire,  who  certainly  thought  he  understood 
French  women,  said  that  for  most  of  them  at  thirty-five 
who  are  married  and  perhaps  for  even  more  who  are 
unwed,  anything  was  possible.  Even  curiosity  is  a  spur 
to  adventure  and  fancy,  if  not  conduct,  may  prompt 
to  cast  off  all  restraints.  "Why  not  ?"  is  a  question  that 
incessantly  arises  and  every  answer  seems  unsatisfac- 
tory. And  how  many  of  us  can  qualify,  by  being  with- 
out sin,  to  cast  the  first  stone  at  those  who  fall  here. 
Such  women  are  too  old  to  enter  upon  a  life  of  vice  but 
often  form  secret  and  occasionally  very  happy  alliances 
with,  usually,  older  men,  which  may  last  for  years  with- 
out involving  any  abandonment  of  their  stated  occupa- 
tion or  leaving  the  ranks  of  respectability  and  with  now, 
unquestionably,  a  growing  disposition  on  the  part  of 
society  to  condone,  even  though  it  may  suspect  or  even 
know. 

Again,  as  we  men  grow  old,  we  recognize  that  we 
have  lost  something  of  whatever  attraction  we  have  had 
for  the  other  sex  generally  and  often  come  to  regard 
most  of  its  members  as  somewhat  trivial  and  to  prefer 
the  society  of  other  men.  Even  the  love  of  husbands 
and  wives  happily  married  takes  on  a  different  char- 
acter; and  they  are  fortunate,  indeed,  if  the  losses  are 
balanced  or  compensated  for  by  the  gains,  as  they  should 
ideally  be,  or  if  friendship  waxes  as  erotism  wanes.  The 
390 


SOME  CONCLUSIONS 

old  beau  who  devotes  attention  without  intention  to 
younger  women  can,  at  best,  only  amuse  and  rarely  in- 
terest them,  although  they  may  feel  subtly  flattered 
Sometimes  they  find  delectation  in  cajoling  him  and  play- 
ing upon  his  weaknesses  and  they  may  also  come  to 
indulge  in  a  freedom  of  speech  and  manner  with  him 
that  they  would  never  permit  themselves  with  men  of 
their  own  age;  while,  conversely,  friendships  between 
older  women  and  younger  men  are  always  more  sincere. 
The  case  of  the  doddering  dotard  with  the  flapper  is 
rare,  save  in  the  literature  of  senile  psychopathology  and 
medical  jurisprudence,  where  it  is  by  no  means  uncom- 
mon. But  this  we  shall  not  here  discuss. 

Senescent  men  are  also  too  prone  to  attribute  the  other 
manifestations  of  their  own  abatement  of  philoprogeni- 
tive energy  to  the  lessened  ardor  of  their  wives  and  per- 
haps to  invoke  the  abnormal  stimulus  of  some  wild  love 
to  sustain,  or  at  least  to  test,  their  vigor,  not  realizing 
that  such  a  course  accelerates  rather  than  retards  the 
involution  that  comes  with  age.  The  jealousy  felt  to- 
wards young,  ardent  wives  by  their  older  husbands  lest 
they  be  made  cuckold  constitutes  probably  a  far  less  fre- 
quent triangle  and  involves,  on  the  whole,  less  suffering 
than  that  experienced  by  wives  who  are  growing  frigid 
with  years  toward  their  still  lusty  spouses.  The  age 
disparity  of  the  climacteric  may  open  a  door  for  suspi- 
cions, however  groundless,  which  may  secretly  sap  the 
foundations  of  conjugal  harmony.  In  this  connection 
one  must  always  take  account  of  the  fact  that  there 
is  not  seldom  in  man  an  Indian  summer,  of  months  or 
occasionally  years,  of  enhanced  inclination  toward  sex 
before  its  final  extinction,  as  returns  elsewhere  reported 
show.  From  personal  confessions  and  medical  litera- 
ture, studies  made  in  old  men's  homes,  and  sporadic 
evidence  from  other  sources,  I  am  convinced  that  for  a 
very  large  proportion  of  old  men  the  progressive  loss 

391 


SENESCENCE 

of  potence,  with  all  the  complex  phenomena  attending 
it,  is  one  of  the  chief,  and  in  many  cases  the  very  most 
psychalgic,  experience  of  all  the  changes  involved  in 
growing  old.  There  is  a  very  pregnant  sense  in  which 
a  man  is  as  old  as  the  glands  that  dominate  this  phase 
of  life.  Laymen,  including  most  physicians,  know  very 
little  of  and  find  it  hard  to  credit  the  devices  that  may 
be  resorted  to  to  retard  this  atrophy  or  often  to  conserve 
and  even  enhance  the  vestiges  of  this  function,  the  exces- 
sive activity  of  which  is  the  surest  preventative  of  a 
happy  old  age.  While  there  are  those  who  late  in  life 
resort  to  vicious  and  even  pathological  modes  of  grati- 
fication, those  who  became  debauchees  in  youth  or  mid- 
dle life  very  rarely  even  attain  old  age  and  all  should 
heed  the  motto  to  "beware  the  Indian  summer  of  eroti- 
cism." Who  has  not  observed  among  his  personal 
acquaintances,  to  say  nothing  of  men  conspicuous  in 
public  life,  the  tragic  consequences  to  health,  occupation, 
and  even  life,  that  follow  when  December  weds  May; 
and  what  shall  we  say,  even  from  the  eugenic  standpoint, 
of  women  who  prefer  to  be  an  old  man's  darling  to  a 
young  man's  slave.  We  know,  too,  that  children  born 
of  postmature  parents  are  liable,  if  they  mature  at  all, 
to  do  so  precociously  and  to  show  early  signs  of  senility, 
just  as  children  born  of  those  of  premature  age  often 
fail  to  reach  full  maturity.  If  contraceptive  methods 
are  ever  justifiable,  it  is  to  prevent  offspring  of  both 
but  perhaps  especially  the  former  kind. 

On  the  other  hand,  we  have  many  clinical  cases  in 
which  after  years  of  impotence  from  psychic  causes  the 
removal  of  these  latter  not  only  restored  the  procreative 
function  but  relieved  the  patient  of  often  grave  symp- 
toms and  brought  marked  mental  rejuvenation.  This 
has  been  often  recorded,  especially  for  men.  In  some 
instances,  apparently,  children  have  been  born  after  such 
a  period  of  dormancy  or  latency  that  has  lasted  for 

392 


SOME  CONCLUSIONS 

years.  Not  only  is  the  downward  slope  of  this  curve 
far  more  gradual  than  its  pubertal  rise  and,  as  we  have 
seen,  attended  by  more  oscillations  but  there  is  far  more 
individual  variation  in  the  age  at  which  decline  begins 
and  ends,  so  that  one  man's  norm  would  be  another 
man's  disaster  and  perhaps  doom. 

The  old  should  be  able  to  think  most  dispassionately 
upon  such  themes  and  should  feel  it  incumbent  upon 
them  to  transmit  the  wisdom  born  of  their  own  ex- 
perience and  observation  to  the  younger  generation.  In 
certain  primitive  races  and  modern  societies  and  com- 
munities the  old,  usually  of  the  same  but  sometimes  even 
of  the  opposite  sex  are  expected  to  initiate  the  members 
of  the  rising  generation  in  the  mysteries  of  sex.  We 
now  know  the  dangers  and  sometimes  even  incestuous 
tendencies  with  which  such  a  course  is  sure  to  be  beset ; 
and  if  parents  attempt  to  discharge  this  function  for 
their  children,  or  wherever  it  is  done  personally,  there 
are  perils.  Indeed,  none  of  the  methods  of  sex  educa- 
tion, of  which  so  many  have  lately  been  proposed,  have 
been  entirely  satisfactory.  Perhaps  this  kind  of  train- 
ing really  ought  to  be  one  of  the  special  functions  of 
grandparents  and  they  should  prepare  themselves  for 
it.  At  any  rate,  while  we  have  learned  much  in  recent 
years  of  sex  psychology,  pedagogy,  and  hygiene  for  the 
young,  we  have  almost  no  literature,  and  indeed  know 
almost  nothing  of  it  for  the  old;  and  this  despite  the 
fact  that  they  are  in  the  greatest  need  of  it  and  have 
practically  no  help  in  the  solution  of  the  novel  and  in- 
tricate problems  they  must  now  face,  as  best  they  can, 
alone. 

One  reason  why  treatises  on  the  climacteric  are  so  few 
and  so  inadequate  is  that  the  importance  of  the  subject 
has  only  lately  been  recognized  even  by  psychiatrists, 
gynecologists,  or  gerontologists ;  while  another  and 
more  important  reason  is  found  in  the  extreme  reluc- 

393 


SENESCENCE 

tance  of  the  old  to  tell.  Psychoanalysis  is  impossible 
unless  it  can  overcome  resistance,  which  it  is  often  put 
to  its  wit's  ends  to  do.  Modesty  and  perhaps  prudery 
have  veiled  the  physiological  and,  far  more,  the  psycho- 
logical aspect  of  this  function.  This  instinct  of  con- 
cealment is  no  less,  and  probably  far  greater,  in  the 
old.  They  balk,  evade,  and  deceive  the  investigator  at 
every  step.  Psychoanalysts  have  strangely  neglected 
this  theme  and  generally  even  refuse  to  take  patients 
of  over  forty  or  fifty  years  of  age.  What  can  be  learned 
in  homes  for  old  men  is  usually  by  observation,  from 
attendants  and  from  inmates'  talk  of  each  other,  and  those 
who  answer  questionnaires  almost  always  fail  to  note 
facts  even  remotely  related  to  this  theme.  Still,  in  this 
terra  incognita  we  occasionally  come  upon  the  naked 
truth,  only  to  realize  that  the  retreat  of  Amor  is  the  coun- 
terpart of  its  advent,  as  autumn  is  of  springtide.  What 
nature  gives  so  prodigally  in  pubescent  and  adolescent 
years  she  garners  with  no  less  circumstance  and  no  less 
attention  to  details,  so  that  we  are  left,  in  the  end,  with 
no  less  tendencies  to  "polymorphic  perversity"  than  be- 
fore these  were  constellated  into  the  normal  sex  life 
of  maturity.  Even  some  of  the  proclivities  to  auto- 
erotism  and  homosexuality  may  arise.  Amatory  rev- 
eries  may  increase  as  dreams  of  this  character  decrease 
and  there  are  often  flashing  recrudescences  of  desire. 

Despite  or  after  the  long  and  sometimes  acute  per- 
turbations  of  the  vita  sexualis  as  it  draws  to  its  close, 
there  is  very  commonly  a  new  and  deep  peace.  We 
are  glad  that  the  storm  and  stress  are  passed  and  that 
we  are  henceforth  immune  to  passion.  This  is  doubt- 
less the  normal  and,  let  us  hope,  increasingly  common 
course.  The  sexes  approximate  each  other  in  both  traits 
and  features  as  they  grow  old  and  thus  if  we  can  no 
longer  love  women  sensually,  we  have  a  new  apprecia- 
tion of  the  eternally  feminine,  its  intuitive  qualities,  and 

394 


SOME  CONCLUSIONS 

its  more  general  and  moral  interests.  Old  women  ac- 
quire a  new  power  of  sensing  things  from  man's  point 
of  view  and  hence  companionship  between  old  men  and 
women  may  become  a  noble  surrogate  for  carnal  love. 
Happy  the  old  who  can  enjoy  comradeship  on  this  plane 
with  a  congenial  member  of  the  other  sex  and  thrice 
happy  is  the  very  rare  case  of  well-mated  couples  who 
find,  when  the  time  comes,  that  they  have  qualified  for 
this  consummation  of  their  union  with  each  other! 

Folklore,  especially  in  its  grosser  forms,  but  also 
classical  and  medieval,3  and  even  modern  literature — 
medical,  psychiatric,  and  most  of  all  the  writings  of 
psychoanalysis — abound  in  descriptions  of  the  tragic 
results  that  ensue  when  husband  and  wife  do  not  grow 
old  together  or  when  their  age  disparity  is  too  great. 
Even  in  the  purest,  most  loyal,  and  best  mated  pairs 
there  is  often  a  period  of  unspoken  and  perhaps  half 
unconscious  suspicion  and  jealousy,  which  each  partner 
regrets  and  tries  to  banish  from  waking  thoughts,  out- 
crops of  which  often  appear  in  dreams.  Roues  have 
always  felt  that  the  young  wives  of  old  men  were  their 
legitimate  prey.  The  former  seem  more  liable  to  fall 
before  temptation  than  if  they  had  remained  single. 
Bitter,  indeed,  is  often  the  lot  of  Senex  who  dotes  on  a 
young  bride  and  seeks  to  atone  by  lavishing  gifts  and 
providing  every  kind  of  service  and  social  enjoyment 
that  infatuation  can  suggest  for  waning  marital  potency. 
While  society  austerely  and  even  ostentatiously  con- 
demns such  a  wife  who  errs,  it  secretly  judges  her  to 
be  not  without  some  excuse  and  has  little  pity,  and  often 
only  covert  derision,  for  such  a  husband. 

Yet  more  pathetic  is  the  converse  case  of  the  aging 
wife  of  a  spouse  yet  young  and  lusty.  The  sense  that 
she  is  losing  her  charm  for  the  man  she  loves  is  gall 

1  See  Burton's  Anatomy  of  Melancholy,  sec.  3. 

395 


SENESCENCE 

and  wormwood  to  her  very  soul.  She,  too,  seeks  to 
atone  by  making  herself  physically  more  attractive,  not 
only  to  him  but  to  others  that  he  may  see  their  admira- 
tion, by  every  kind  of  personal  ministration  and  often  by 
seeking  literary,  artistic,  or  other  success  outside  the 
family  circle.  She  becomes  painfully  conscious  of  the 
attractions  of  younger  or  otherwise  more  favored 
women  whom  her  mate  meets  and  easily  grows  suspi- 
cious, not  only  with  but  often  without  cause.  She  may 
feel  the  lure  of  incentives  other  women  use  to  attract 
men  which  her  pride  will  not  permit  her  to  cultivate, 
although  she  may  make  concessions  to  these  more  or 
less  unconsciously.  Tendencies  thus  repressed  may  find 
outcrops  in  other  fields  and  may  even  take  the  form  of 
symptoms,  perhaps  of  fears  for  the  well-being  of  her 
mate,  even  of  physical  harm,  business  failure,  social  dis- 
grace, or  perhaps  religious  heresy.  In  other  cases  she 
may  be  at  last  forced  to  admit  infidelity  on  his  part  and 
then  it  is  that  she  finds  herself  face  to  face  with  the 
dour  problem  of  either  trying  to  ignore  or  condone,  and 
perhaps  conceal  or  excuse,  his  fault  to  others  and  living 
a  hollow  life  of  sham  and  convention  on  the  one  hand ; 
or  of  openly  breaking  and  separating  and  living  hence- 
forth a  more  or  less  isolated  life,  on  the  other.  She 
must  thus  very  carefully  weigh  not  only  her  own  ma- 
terial interests  but  the  future  of  her  children  and  the 
chance  of  pitiless  public  scandal. 

In  the  medical  literature  on  the  menopause  (Kisch, 
who  studied  96  cases ;  Laudet,  95 ;  Tilt,  Faye,  and  Mayer, 
97  each;  and  especially  the  more  philosophical  Borner 
and  Currier)  we  find  very  little  save  records  of  physio- 
logical and  anatomical  changes,  so  that  it  has  remained 
for  the  Freudians  to  exploit  the  perhaps  far  more  impor- 
tant psychic  changes  that  characterize  this  stage  of  life. 
The  love  life  in  the  new  and  larger  sense  in  which  this 
is  now  coming  to  be  understood  is  the  very  heart  and 
396 


SOME  CONCLUSIONS 

core  of  woman's  nature  and  it  plays  a  vaster  role  in 
the  life  of  man  than  had  till  lately  been  suspected. 
Whatever  thwarts  or  diverts  the  vita  sexualis  from  its 
normal  course  brings  all  kinds  of  disasters  in  its  train. 
About  all  the  transformations  of  senescence  root  in  the 
fact  that  by  this  recession  of  the  life  tide  we  are 
gradually  cut  loose  from  the  more  vital  currents  of  the 
life  of  the  race  and  individuality  now  has  its  unique 
innings.  The  debauchee,  who  marries  perhaps  late  and 
after  long  experience  with  women  of  easy  virtue,  often 
finds  a  modest  wife  disappointing  and  misses  all  the  arts 
of  allurement  he  had  found  in  his  orgies.  So,  too,  when 
the  happily  married  man  finds  the  earlier  ardors  of  his 
wife  growing  cool,  he  is  only  too  liable  to  suspect  wan- 
ing affection,  when  in  fact  nature  is  only  following  her 
inexorable  course.  He  may  even  wonder  if,  in  the  in- 
scrutable ways  Eros  has,  his  wife's  fancy  may  have 
unconsciously  strayed  to  some  more  engaging  man  or 
fallen  a  victim  to  some  baseless  suspicion  of  him,  or  at 
any  rate  grown  weary  of  his  advances  and  perhaps  come 
to  a  new  and  deeper  realization  of  some  of  his  faults 
or  limitations.  Feeling  that  their  present  relations  are 
not  all  they  once  were,  he  fails  to  recognize  that  it  is 
the  very  nature  of  love  to  grow  sublimated  as  years  pass 
and  to  become  more  and  more  an  affair  of  the  soul,  as 
it  perhaps  once  was  of  the  body;  and  that  it  is  just  at 
this  critical  point  that  it  normally  becomes  richer,  riper, 
and  more  truly  devoted.  The  wife's  impulse  to  minister 
disinterestedly  to  her  husband  is  never  so  strong  or  pure 
as  at  the  moment  when  the  power  of  giving  complete 
physical  satisfaction  first  begins  to  wane  and  it  is  at  this 
epoch  that  it  can  so  easily  and  naturally  be  transmuted 
into  the  impulse  to  serve,  help,  enter  into  closer  and 
more  sympathetic  mental  relations,  to  know  more  of  his 
inner  life,  struggles,  ideals,  ambitions  and  even  his  busi- 
ness and  in  general  to  enlarge  the  surface  of  personal 

397 


SENESCENCE 

contact.  This  is  thus  the  psychological  moment  for  man 
to  interest  his  mate  in  the  affairs  he  has  most  at  heart 
and  to  make  her  a  partner,  perhaps  even  of  some  of  the 
details,  of  his  own  vocation.  This  golden  opportunity, 
however,  is  brief,  and  if  it  passes  unimproved  it  will 
soon  be  forever  too  late  and  each  mate  will,  ere  long, 
find  him-  or  herself  starting  on  devious  ways  that  will 
lead  them  ever  further  apart. 

Conversely,  when  a  young  wife  first  realizes  that  her 
husband  is  aging,  she  should  understand  that  nature 
now  impels  him  to  compensate  for  physical  by  mental 
devotion  and  she  may  have  even  to  face  some  form  of 
the  above  choice  whether  it  is  better  to  be  an  old  man's 
darling  or  a  young  man's  slave.  In  him  this  is  the  nascent 
hour  for  becoming  interested  in  her  inmost  wishes,  aims, 
feelings,  ideals,  and  to  help  her  actualize  them.  In  ex- 
treme cases  he  may  come  to  devote  himself  to  dancing 
attendance  upon  her  wishes  and  even  whims  unless  she 
herself  has  the  good  sense  to  restrain  him  from  this 
fatuity,  for  by  cleverly  humoring  and  restraining  him 
she  can  just  now  make  him  very  plastic  to  her  will. 
Thus  her  problem  sometimes  is  to  save  him  from  an 
infatuation  for  her  that  might  become  ridiculous  and 
that  some  wives  are  foolish  enough  to  love  to  display. 
She  must,  however,  learn  to  develop  in  and  accept  from 
him  better  succedanea  for  the  more  libidinous  eros  and 
to  do  this  she  must  enter  more  sympathetically  and  in- 
tellectually into  his  life,  as  instinct  now  impels  him  to 
enter  into  hers.  The  impulse  in  the  physiologically 
younger  partner  of  every  married  pair  to  anticipate  the 
age  of  the  older  one,  if  wisely  met,  may  result  in  greater 
sanity  and  more  true  happiness  for  both.  Who  does  not 
know  fortunate  cases  where  just  this  has  occurred,  rare 
though  they  may  be  and  many  as  are  the  wreckages 
that  have  resulted  from  too  great  age  disparity?  If 
the  wife  tends  to  be  in  the  mother  image  and  the  husband 
398 


SOME  CONCLUSIONS 

in  the  image  of  the  father,  a  rich  and  rare  blend  of 
parent  and  mate  love  is  sometimes  seen.  The  feelings 
of  the  ideal  bridegroom  for  the  ideal  bride  are  never 
without  a  strong  ingredient  of  the  affection  he  once 
cherished  for  his  own  mother,  while  one  factor  of  her 
love  for  him  was  transferred  from  or  first  developed 
toward  her  father.  At  the  same  time  each  has  a  small 
ingredient  of  parental  feeling  toward  the  other,  as  if 
they  were  each  child  and  each  parent  to  the  other.  In 
all  such  unions  the  younger  partner  rejuvenates  the 
older  far  more  than  the  older  ages  the  younger. 

In  all  of  us  oldsters  the  problem  of  personal  hygiene 
looms  up  with  new  dimensions.  In  our  prime  we  gave 
little  attention  to  health.  The  body  responded  to  most 
of  the  demands  we  made  upon  it.  If  we  were  very  tired, 
we  slept  the  sounder.  We  paid  no  attention  to  minor 
ailments,  which  soon  righted  themselves.  We  ate  or 
drank  what,  and  as  much  as,  appetite  called  for;  ex- 
posed ourselves  to  wind  and  weather,  heat  and  cold, 
wet  and  dry,  with  impunity.  We  could  go  without  sleep 
a  night  or  two  if  necessary  and  feel  but  little  the  worse 
for  it;  could  abuse  our  eyes,  nerves,  heart,  digestion, 
muscles,  and  more  or  less  escape  all  evil  consequences ; 
could  work  at  top  speed  and  with  an  intensity  that  rung 
up  all  our  reserve  energies  for  days  or  weeks  if  need 
be,  and  could  feel  sure  that  our  good  constitutions  would 
enable  us  to  bear  the  strain  and  to  more  or  less  promptly 
recuperate.  But  now  our  credit  at  the  bank  of  health 
begins  to  run  low.  We  must  husband  our  resources 
lest  we  overdraw  them.  Overdoing  is  a  veritable 
bugaboo.  There  are  certain  symptoms  we  must  never 
disregard  on  pain  of  days  of  lessened  efficiency.  We 
have  had  one  or  more  signs  of  special  weaknesses  we 
must  heed.  There  are  some  things  that  we  must  rigor- 
ously refrain  from  eating  or  doing.  There  is  a  weak 
organ,  too,  that  must  be  humored.  Appetite  has  per- 

399 


SENESCENCE 

haps  been  too  keen  and  must  be  reined  in.  We  must 
select  the  items  of  our  dietary  with  discretion  and  self- 
restraint.  A  typical  respondent  says  he  can  still  indulge 
his  love  of  hill-climbing,  bicycling,  swimming,  and  even 
skating,  and  exercises  with  diverse  gymnastic  apparatus 
that  he  has  had  set  up  in  his  garage,  to  say  nothing  of 
golf,  which  he  holds  to  be  best  of  all,  and  autoing,  which 
has  become  with  him  a  veritable  craze.  All  these  things 
at  the  age  of  seventy-five  he  still  does  occasionally  but 
is  becoming  shy  of  doing  so  lest  he  be  thought  trying 
to  seem  young.  He  lately  stole  out  alone  at  twilight  to 
skate,  when  one  urchin  called  to  another,  "Hey,  Johnnie, 
doesn't  that  old  man  skate  bully?"  He  said  he  felt  like 
cuffing  him  for  calling  him  "old"  and  hugging  him  for 
praise  of  his  performance. 

One  correspondent  says  in  substance  that  he  did  his 
best  mental  work  evenings,  continuing  usually  until  at 
least  one  o'clock  in  the  morning  and  then  tumbling  into 
bed,  perhaps  after  a  half  an  hour  spent  on  a  novel  as  a 
nightcap  or  brain  sponge,  and  falling  at  once  into  pro- 
found sleep  undisturbed  by  dreams  and  with  hardly  a 
change  of  posture  till  nature's  demands  were  entirely 
satisfied.  Now  all  his  serious  study  can  best  be  done  by 
daylight  and  particularly  in  the  early  part  of  the  day 
and  he  has  a  simple  set  of  routine  prescriptions  for  go- 
ing to  bed  and  to  sleep.  He  occasionally  awakes  and 
even  arises  before  morning,  knows  the  sounds  of  all  the 
night  watches  and  is  generally  aware  of  the  early  dawn 
despite  darkened  windows,  and  is  sometimes  disturbed 
by  troublesome  dreams.  He  needs  less  sleep  as  measured 
by  hours  but  is  more  dependent  upon  its  soundness. 
Again,  he  sometimes  feels  moody,  depressed,  irritable, 
and  wonders  if  anyone  observes  it.  He  has  a  new 
horror  of  nerves,  of  constipation,  of  age  lapsing  to 
dotage,  anecdotage,  and  garrulity  or  taciturnity.  If 
anything  goes  physically  wrong,  he  recuperates  more 

400 


SOME  CONCLUSIONS 

slowly  and  blesses  his  stars  that  his  good  heredity  pulls 
him  through,  and  nurses  his  weaknesses  the  more  there- 
after. He  has  a  notion  that  by  keeping  at  work  all  he 
is  able  to,  he  is  conserving  an  energy  that  by  letting  up, 
if  he  is  ill,  will  be  drawn  upon  to  restore  him  to  con- 
dition; whereas  if  he  were  habitually  idle  this  reserve 
would  be  thereby  dissipated.  With  all  the  precautions 
and  handicaps  thus  entailed  he  is  still  sometimes  able 
to  attain  a  high  state  of  morale,  to  feel  again  the  old 
youthful  joy  and  exuberance  of  life,  although  it  now 
has  a  new  and  unique  quality.  There  are  also  certain 
new  ambitions  he  dares  not  express.  He  even  longs 
for  new  adventures  before  it  is  forever  too  late.  He 
realizes  that  all  his  life  he  has  been  more  or  less 
repressed  by  "the  fear  of  living"  and  would  now  entirely 
escape  it.  He  is  not  content  to  grind  over  the  old  mental 
stores  but  would  reach  out  into  other  fields  and  find 
new  ones.  He  fears  intellectual  stagnation  and  routine 
as  the  senses  begin  to  grow  dull  and  that  he  is  not  well 
nourished  mentally  or  suitably  prepared  for  old  age  and 
the  psychic  marasmus  to  which  it  is  so  prone. 

The  old  tend  to  grow  stale  and  sterile  of  soul  from 
two  causes:  lack  of  fresh  mental  pabulum  and  abate- 
ment of  the  power  of  creative  ideation,  and  so  their  men- 
tation lapses  and  they  become  fatuous  about  trifles  and 
feel  that  just  as  they  must  live  circumspectly  lest  their 
body  suffer  some  sudden  collapse  so  their  psychic  self 
may  crumble  into  senility  and  the  subtle  processes  of 
disintegration  and  dementia  slowly  supervene,  a  decline 
of  which  we  are  usually  far  less  aware  than  of  physical 
decay.  All  these  considerations,  however,  may  and  to- 
gether should  constitute  a  splendid  stimulus  to  activity. 
The  very  danger  of  decline  or  breakdown  is  a  spur  to 
develop  the  higher  powers  of  man  in  this  their  time. 

In  such  experiences  we  seem  to  have  a  condition  of 
great  interest  and  also  of  practical  importance.  Physical 

401 


SENESCENCE 

infirmity  and  accident  which  compel  special  attention 
to  body-keeping  often  result  in  such  added  care  to 
hygienic  condition  that  we  are  actually  better  and  more 
effective  for  the  impairment.  Just  as  an  old  man  who 
takes  special  care  not  to  fall  or  to  take  risks  is  often 
safer  from  injury  than  a  stronger  and  less  careful  man, 
so  in  mental  work  consciousness  of  certain  shortcomings 
may  act  as  a  spur  to  take  more  pains  and  so  to  do 
superior  work.  To  this  is  added  another  stimulus.  A 
senescent  knows  that  his  friends  and  enemies  will  be 
liable  to  ascribe  any  imperfections  in  his  intellectual 
output  to  failing  powers,  and  his  horror  of  betraying 
this  is  an  added  incentive  to  do  his  very  best.  If  his 
last  product  could  be  his  best,  he  could  die  happier,  and 
he  cannot  bear  the  thought  of  exhibiting  signs  or  stages 
of  senile  debility.  To  be  willing  to  accept  the  allowances 
that  his  hostile  or  even  his  amiable  critics  would  be  will- 
ing to  make  for  his  years  is  craven.  His  chief  danger 
is  lest  the  standards  of  self-censorship  for  his  perform- 
ances should  unconsciously  decline  and  that  he  should 
come  to  judge  his  own  inferior  work  as  superior.  Of 
this  the  history  of  literature  has  countless  examples, 
more  perhaps  than  of  the  opposite  tendency. 

Unquestionably,  too,  there  is  a  certain  maturity  of 
judgment  about  men,  things,  causes,  and  life  generally 
that  nothing  in  the  world  but  years  can  bring,  a  real 
wisdom  that  only  age  can  teach.  But  to  observe  and 
rely  on  this  to  compensate  for  thoroughgoing  rigorism 
in  demonstration  or  mastery  of  copious  details  is  a 
fatality  too  often  seen.  Finally,  we  must  realize  that 
our  own  brain  work  must  be  done  with  less  of  the 
afflatus  that  often  aided  us  in  youth  or  in  maturity. 
Once  our  best  ideas  came  to  us  in  heat  after  a  warming 
up  of  our  faculties,  perhaps  into  an  erethic  or  second- 
breath  state.  We  found  ourselves  in  the  grip  of  a  sort 
of  inspiration  that  carried  us  on  perhaps  far  into  the 
402 


SOME  CONCLUSIONS 

night  or  impelled  us  to  exceptional  activities  for  days 
or  even  weeks  and  brought  a  reaction  of  lassitude  in 
its  train.  But  now,  not  only  is  this  generally  less  or 
lacking  but  our  mentation  must  be  more  stated,  our 
hours  of  intense  application  must  be  kept  within  bounds, 
and  there  is  the  perennial  danger  of  overdoing  and  its 
penalties  are  surer  and  more  severe.  Thus  with  age 
we  must  develop  a  new  system  or  method  that  recognizes 
and  comports  with  our  true  mental  age.  We  must  have 
safely  passed  the  Scylla  and  Charybdis  of  affecting  to 
be  younger  than  we  are  and  of  aping  or  adhering  too 
conservatively  to  the  manners  of  thought  and  feeling 
characteristic  of  earlier  youth,  on  the  one  hand;  or,  on 
the  other,  we  must  escape  the  opposite  attitude  that 
often  supervenes  later  in  the  very  old  of  vaunting  their 
years  and  posing  as  prodigies  of  senescence.  In  a  word, 
the  call  to  us  is  to  construct  a  new  self  just  as  we  had 
to  do  at  adolescence,  a  self  that  both  adds  to  and  sub- 
tracts much  from  the  old  personality  of  our  prime.  We 
must  not  only  command  a  masterly  retreat  along  the 
old  front  but  a  no  less  masterly  advance  to  a  new  and 
stronger  position  and  find  compensation  for  what  old 
age  leaves  behind  in  what  it  brings  that  is  new.  What, 
more  precisely,  is  this  latter  ? 

Youth  should  anticipate  the  wisdom  of  age  and  age 
should  conserve  the  spontaneity  of  youth,  for  this  latter 
becomes  not  less  but  only  more  inward  as  we  advance 
in  years.  As  the  eye  dims  and  the  dominance  of  optical 
impressions  over  attention  declines,  we  see  ideas  clearer 
and  follow  the  associations  of  thought  rather  than  those 
of  the  external  world  with  some  of  the  same  freedom 
as  that  which  comes  to  dreams  when  we  close  the  eyes  in 
sleep.  So,  when  audition  becomes  less  sensitive,  we  turn 
to  the  voices  of  inner  oracles.  If  current  events  impress 
and  absorb  us  less,  we  can  knit  up  the  past,  present,  and 
future  into  a  higher  unity.  As  the  muscles  grow  weak 

403 


SENESCENCE 

the  will,  of  which  they  were  the  organ,  grows  :trong 
to  make  the  new  adjustments  necessary,  while  easy 
fatigue  suggests  renunciation  and  the  acceptance  of  fate. 
Love  that  is  less  individualized  may  become  not  only 
broader  but  stronger.  We  worry  because  we  feel  we 
have  not  made  the  new  adjustments  necessary  or  un- 
sealed all  the  new  sources  of  wisdom  and  strength. 
Symptoms  call  upon  us  to  develop  hygienic  sagacity  and 
censoriousness  may  be  only  a  negative  expression  of  a 
higher  idealism  that  longs  for  a  better  world.  Schleier- 
macher  *  developed  this  thought,  insisting  that  age  was 
not  only  conserved  but  renewed  youth,  that  no  one 
should  feel  old  till  he  feels  perfect,  that  age  brings  us 
into  contact  with  new  sources  of  life  and  gives  a  new 
sense  of  the  independence  of  the  soul  from  the  body, 
not  thus  presaging  a  higher  post-mortem  existence  but 
being  itself  an  entirely  new  life. 

If  I  were  charged  with  the  task  of  compiling  a  secular 
bible  for  the  aged,  I  would  include  two  great  and  historic 
sections  from  Aristotle.5  In  the  one  he  describes  virtue 
as  the  golden  mean  between  the  extremes  of  excess  and 
defect,  as,  for  example,  courage  between  timidity  and 
f oolhardiness ;  liberality  between  avarice  and  prodi- 
gality; modesty  between  bashfulness  and  impudence; 
courtesy  between  rudeness  and  flattery ;  vanity  between 
solemnness  and  buffoonery,  etc.,  in  each  of  his  twelve 
spheres  of  life.  In  the  other  passage  he  characterizes 
the  magnanimous  man  as  slow,  dignified  in  speech  and 
movement,  forgetful  of  injuries,  not  seeking  praise,  open 
and  not  secretive  because  unafraid,  attempting  but  few 
things  but  those  things  of  gravity,  neither  shunning  nor 
seeking  danger,  ready  to  die  for  a  great  cause,  more 
disposed  to  bestow  than  to  receive  benefits  or  favors, 
inclined  to  be  proud  to  the  proud  and  kindly  to  the  meek 

4  Monologen. 

•  Ethics,  Book  II,  Chaps.  3  and  6  and  Book  IV,  Chap.  3. 

404 


SOME  CONCLUSIONS 

and  humble,  always  animated  by  the  effort  to  make  his 
conduct  in  life  as  nearly  ideal  as  possible — or,  in  a  word, 
making  honor  his  muse  and  striving  always  to  be  worthy 
of  it.  Now,  most  of  these  traits  belong  more  to  the 
ideal  of  old  age  than  to  that  of  any  earlier  period  in 
life.  The  most  advanced  regimen  and  hygiene  of  to-day 
— personal,  mental,  moral,  social,  political,  judicial,  and 
even  religious — have  little  better  to  suggest  for  old  age, 
in  which  all  the  qualities  here  implied  should  culminate, 
bringing  poise  and  philosophic  calm. 

This  brings  me  to  the  main  thesis  of  this  book,  which 
is  that  intelligent  and  well-conserved  senectitude  has 
very  important  social  and  anthropological  functions  in 
the  modern  world  not  hitherto  utilized  or  even  recog- 
nized. The  chief  of  these  is  most  comprehensively 
designated  by  the  general  term  synthesis,  something 
never  so  needed  as  in  our  very  complex  age  of  distract- 
ing specializations. 

In  the  first  place,  it  has  been  noted  that  withdrawal 
from  biological  phyletic  functions  is  often  marked  by 
an  Indian  summer  of  increased  clarity  and  efficiency  in 
intellectual  work.  Not  only  does  individuation  now  have 
its  innings  but  the  distractions  from  passion,  the  lust 
for  wealth  and  power,  and  in  general  the  struggle  for 
place  and  fame,  have  abated  and  in  their  stead  comes, 
normally,  not  only  a  philosophic  calm  but  a  desire  to 
draw  from  accumulated  experience  and  knowledge  the 
ultimate,  and  especially  the  moral,  lessons  of  life — in  a 
word,  to  sum  up  in  a  broader  view  the  net  results  of  all 
we  have  learned  of  the  comedie  humaine.  Taylor  even 
considers  the  climacteric  as  not  pathological  but  as  "a 
conservation  process  of  nature  to  provide  for  a  higher 
and  more  stable  phase  of  development,  an  economic  lop- 
ping off  of  functions  no  longer  needed,  preparing  the 
individual  for  a  different  form  of  activity."  Shaler, 
too,  noted  "an  enlargement  of  intellectual  interests;" 

405 


SENESCENCE 

and  there  is  much  in  experience  and  literature  to  con- 
firm this  view.  The  dangers  and  excitements  of  life 
are  passed.  Normal  men  tend  to  become  more  judicial 
and  benevolent  and  these  traits  suggest  new  possibilities 
for  the  race  as  vicariate  for  the  loss  of  the  power  of 
physical  procreation.  Many  think  these  phenomena  are 
more  marked  in  women  but  even  men  who  seem  to  have 
crossed  the  deadline  at  fifty  or  even  forty  are  sometimes 
later  reanimated.  Apperceptive  data  have  increased 
facility  for  getting  together,  perhaps  even  into  a  new 
and  larger  view  of  the  world  and  there  may  come  a 
genuine  psychic  erethism  or  second-breath,  half  ecstatic, 
as  the  soul  on  the  home  stretch  expatiates  "o'er  all  the 
world  of  man  a  mighty  maze,  yet  not  without  a  plan." 

There  is,  thus,  a  kind  of  harvest-home  effort  to  gather 
the  fruitage  of  the  past  and  to  penetrate  further  into 
the  future.  It  is  especially  interesting  to  note  that  this 
is  a  stage  of  life  in  which  most  of  the  Freudian  mechan- 
isms and  impulsions  fail  to  act  or  strike  out  in  new  ways 
and  very  different  ones  take  their  place,  which  as  yet 
lack  any  adequate  psychology,  much  as  this  is  needed. 
This  is  the  wisdom  of  Solomon  and  the  Psalmists,  the 
vision  of  the  mystics,  and  it  exists  only  in  those  senes- 
cents  who  have  found  the  rare  power  of  developing  and 
conserving  the  morale  of  their  stage  of  life,  which,  as 
always,  consists  in  keeping  themselves  at  the  top  of  their 
condition.  The  Binet-Simon  devotees  have  furnished 
us  with  no  inkling  of  how  physiological  and  mental  age 
are  related  in  the  old.  Only  when  we  know  this  shall 
we  be  able  to  evaluate  the  mentality  of  real  sages  wise 
in  the  school  of  life.  This  kind  of  sapience  has  a  value 
quite  apart  from  and  beyond  the  methods  of  our  most 
advanced  pedagogy.  St.  John  thinks  that  there  is  a  cer- 
tain rejuvenation  due  to  a  change  from  a  posteriori  to 
a  priori  habits  of  mind  and  that  subjectivity  and  per- 
haps introversion  now  have  their  innings.  However 
406 


SOME  CONCLUSIONS 

this  be,  ripe  old  age  has  been  a  slow,  late,  precarious, 
but  precious  acquisition  of  the  race,  perhaps  not  only 
its  latest  but  also  its  highest  product.  Its  modern  rep- 
resentatives are  pioneers  and  perhaps  its  task  will  prove 
to  be  largely  didactic.  It  certainly  should  go  along  with 
the  corresponding  prolongation  of  youth  and  increasing 
docility  in  the  rising  generation  if  we  are  right  in  charg- 
ing ourselves  with  the  duty  of  building  a  new  story  to 
the  structure  of  human  life.  Thus,  while  old  age  is  not 
at  all  venerable  per  se  we  have  a  mandate  to  make  it 
ever  more  so  by  newer  orientation,  especially  in  a  land 
and  age  that  puts  a  premium  upon  its  splendid  youth, 
who  are  now  often  called  to  precocious  activities  that 
sometimes  bring  grief  and  disaster  because  we  have  been 
oblivious  of  the  precept,  "Old  men  for  counsel." 

True  old  age  is  not,  as  we  have  seen,  second  child- 
hood. It  is  no  more  retrospective  than  prospective.  It 
looks  out  on  the  world  anew  and  involves  something 
like  a  rebirth  of  faculties,  especially  of  curiosity  and 
even  of  naivete.  Moreover,  age  is  in  quest  of  first 
principles  just  as,  though  far  more  earnestly  and  com- 
petently, ingenuous  youth  is.  We  have  seen  that  Plato 
taught  that  the  love  and  quest  of  general  ideas  was  the 
true  achievement  of  immortality  because  it  brought  par- 
ticipation in  the  deathlessness  of  these  consummations 
of  the  noetic  urge,  for  to  him  philosophy  was  anticipa- 
tory death  because  it  involved  a  withdrawal  from  the 
specific  and  particular  toward  the  vastness  and  gen- 
erality of  the  absolute. 

But  to-day  normal  old  age  cannot  be  merely  con- 
templative. True,  our  very  neurons  do  seem  to  aggre- 
gate into  new  and  more  stable  unities  as  if  the  elements 
of  our  personality  were  being  bound  more  closely  to- 
gether, perhaps  in  order  that  we  might  survive  some 
disruptive  crisis  or  that  our  souls  might  not  be  torn 
apart  by  the  wind  if  we  chance  to  die  when  it  blows. 
407 


SENESCENCE 

But  now  we  must  conceive  the  synthetic  trend  as  chiefly 
in  the  pragmatic  service  of  mankind.  Our  message  must 
not  be  a  mere  morituri  salutamus,  however  cheerful,  but 
must  have  a  positive  and  practical  meaning  and  our  out- 
look tower  should  have  a  really  directive  significance. 

One  outstanding  and  central  trait  of  good  old  age  is 
disillusionment.  It  sees  through  the  shams  and  vanities 
of  life.  Many  of  the  most  brilliant  intellectual  achieve- 
ments of  youthful  geniuses  in  thought  construction  are 
precocious  achievements  of  the  insights  that  more  prop- 
erly belong  to  this  later  stage  of  life.  Even  Carlyle's 
Sartor,  Hegel's  Phdnomenologie,  Schopenhauer,  Nietz- 
sche, Emerson,  and  many  more,  to  say  nothing  of  Jesus 
and  Buddha,  show  premature  age.  Young  men  who 
occupy  themselves  with  the  highest  and  most  abstract 
philosophical  problems  are  unconsciously  affecting  or 
striving  to  anticipate  the  most  advanced  mental  age  and 
many  of  them  who  discourse  so  sapiently  on  "ex- 
perience" are  really  those  who  have  had  very  little  of 
it.  The  ancient  Hindus  knew  this  for,  as  Max  Miiller 
tells  us,  the  wise  grandfather  rises  above  all  the  super- 
stitions of  his  progeny,  who  still  worship  the  old  gods 
while  he  has  come  to  revere  only  the  great  One  and  All 
and  to  see  all  faiths  and  rites  as  but  painted  shadows 
that  fancy  casts  upon  the  unknown,  while  he  awaits  the 
blessed  absorption  into  Nirvana. 

Fewest  of  all  are  those  who  ripen  to  senescence  in 
religion  and  realize  that  there  is  no  external  god  but 
only  physical  and  human  nature  and  no  immortality 
save  that  of  our  offspring,  our  work,  or  our  influence. 
All  who  fall  short  of  this  are  arrested  in  juvenile  if  not 
infantile  stages  of  their  development.  So,  in  all  mat- 
ters pertaining  to  sex,  marriage,  and  the  family,  most 
remain  slaves  of  the  mores  of  their  age  and  do  not 
recognize  the  pregnant  sense  in  which  love  and  freedom, 
the  greatest  words  in  all  languages,  should  somehow  be 

408 


SOME  CONCLUSIONS 

wedded,  even  though  we  do  not  yet  know  how.  Only  when 
the  age  of  sex  passes  can  we  look  dispassionately  upon 
all  these  problems  and  glimpse  the  ways  that  easier 
divorce,  backfires  to  lust  and  prostitution,  some  of  which 
current  hypocrisy  still  taboos  the  very  mention  of,  can 
bring.  So,  too,  in  other  social  and  in  our  economic  con- 
ditions we  are  drifting  perilously  near  to  wrecking  reefs. 
The  very  basis  of  our  civilization  is  in  the  greatest 
danger  for  want  of  the  very  aloofness,  impartiality  and 
power  of  generalization  that  age  can  best  supply.  We 
oldsters  do  see  these  things  in  a  truer  perspective  and 
the  time  has  now  come  to  set  them  forth,  despite  the 
penalty  of  being  voted  pessimistic  and  querulent. 

With  all  these  problems  so  wide  open  by  and  since 
the  war  crying  out  for  solution,  surely  senescents  who 
have  retired  and  enjoy  a  superacademic  freedom,  with 
no  responsibilities  to  Boards,  institutions,  or  corporate 
interests ;  with  no  personal  ambitions,  no  temptations  of 
the  flesh,  and  leisure  for  the  highest  things,  have  here 
an  inspiring  function  which  they  must  rise  to.  Age, 
with  a  competence  sufficient  for  its  needs,  freed  from 
anxieties  about  a  future  state,  with  none  of  the  dangers 
young  men  feel  lest  they  impair  their  future  careers, 
should  not  devote  itself  to  rest  and  rust  (Rast  Ich,  so 
rost  Ich)  or  to  amusements,  travel,  or  self-indulgence 
of  personal  taste,  much  as  the  old  may  feel  they  have 
deserved  any  and  all  of  these,  but  should  address  itself 
to  these  new  tasks,  realizing  that  it  owes  a  debt  to  the 
world  which  it  now  vitally  wants  it  to  pay.  Great  found- 
ers of  great  institutions  have  acknowledged  this  debt  and 
striven  to  pay  it  in  the  service  the  rich  can  render.  We 
intellectuals  cannot  pay  it  in  their  coin,  but  we  owe  it 
no  less  and  must  pay  in  the  currency  we  can  command. 

Thus,  old  age  is  not  passive  and  peace-loving  but 
brings  a  new  belligerency.  Many  of  us  longed  for  the 
physical  ability  to  enter  the  war  as  soldiers  and  we  did 

409 


SENESCENCE 

our  "bit"  in  ways  open  to  us  with  as  much  zest  as  our 
juniors.  We  not  only  want  but  need  spiritual  conflicts 
and  feel  reinforced  aggressiveness  against  ignorance, 
superstition,  errors,  the  sins  of  cupidity,  and  lust.  What 
a  list  of  evils  we  could  make  which  we  wanted  to  attack 
in  our  prime  but  lacked  courage  to  grapple  with !  One 
of  these  is  the  current  idea  of  old  age  itself.  We  have 
too  commonly  accepted  the  conventional  allotment  of 
three-score-and-ten  as  applicable  now,  but  the  man  of 
the  future  will  be  ashamed  and  feel  guilty  if  he  cannot 
plan  a  decade  or  two  more  of  activity  and  he  will  not 
permit  himself  to  fall  into  a  thanatopsis  mood  of  mind 
or  retire  to  his  memories  or  to  the  chimney  corner  be- 
cause an  allotted  hour  has  struck. 

If  we  have  lived  aright,  nature  does  give  us  a  new 
lease  of  life  when  passion  and  the  bodily  powers  begin 
to  abate  and  the  very  danger  of  collapse,  as  we  have 
seen,  is  in  itself  a  spur.  The  human  race  is  young  but 
most  are  cut  off.  prematurely.  It  is  ours  to  complete 
the  drama,  to  finish  the  window  of  Aladdin's  tower,  to 
add  a  new  story  to  the  life  of  man,  for  as  yet  we  do  not 
know  what  full  maturity  really  is  and  the  last  culminat- 
ing chapter  of  humanity's  history  is  yet  to  be  written. 

Never,  then,  was  the  world  in  such  crying  need  of 
Nestors  and  Merlins.  What  a  priceless  crop  of  ex- 
perience in  these  postbellum  days  remains  unharvested 
for  want  of  precisely  the  objectivity,  impartiality, 
breadth,  and  perspective  that  age  alone  can  supply! 
These  were  the  qualities  that  enabled  the  venerable  Joffre 
to  make  his  masterly  two-weeks'  retreat  at  the  Marne. 
It  was  done  against  the  will  and  wish  of  every  one  of 
his  younger  generals,  who  now  admit  that  he  saved 
Paris  and  the  war  and  that  he  was,  in  a  sense,  a  true 
superman.  The  world  never  so  needed  the  wisdom, 
which  learning  cannot  give,  that  sees  the  vanity  and 
shallowness  of  narrow  partisanship  and  jingoism,  of 
410 


SOME  CONCLUSIONS 

creeds  that  conceal  more  than  they  reveal,  of  social 
shams  that  often  veil  corruption,  the  insanity  of  the 
money  hunt  that  monopolizes  most  of  the  energy  of  our 
entire  civilization,  and  realizes  that  with  all  our  vaunted 
progress  man  still  remains  essentially  juvenile — much  as 
he  was  before  history  began. 

What  the  world  needs  is  a  kind  of  higher  criticism 
of  life  and  all  its  institutions  to  show  their  latent  be- 
neath their  patent  value  by  true  supermen  who,  like 
Zarathustra,  are  old,  very  old,  with  the  sapience  that 
long  life  alone  can  give.  We  need  prophets  with  vision 
who  can  inspire  and  also  castigate,  to  convict .  the  world 
of  sin,  righteousness,  and  judgment.  Thus,  there  is  a 
new  dispensation  at  the  door  which  graybeards  alone 
can  usher  in.  Otherwise  humanity  will  remain  splendid 
but  incomplete.  Heir  of  all  the  ages,  man  has  not  yet 
come  into  his  full  heritage.  A  traveler,  he  sets  out  for 
a  far  and  supreme  goal  but  is  cut  off  before  he  attains 
or  even  discerns  it.  The  best  part  of  his  history  is  yet 
unwritten  because  it  is  unmade.8 

Now  that  the  pressure  of  outer  reality  and  its  duties 
remit,  attention  tends  more  to  focus  on  self  and  intro- 
spontaneity  and  mentation  may  take  on  a  slightly 
dreamy  character  in  that  it  is  less  under  the  dominion 
of  the  objective  environment,  from  which  there  is  a  new 
sense  of  freedom.  The  demand  for  rigorous  proof  of 
one's  theorizations  is  somewhat  less  insistent  and  critics 
of  them  are  felt  to  be  lacking  in  insight.  There  is  a 
slight  shift  from  inductive  to  deductive  thinking  and 
as  the  senses  begin  to  grow  dim  their  verification  of 
our  speculations  seems  a  trifle  less  imperative.  Experi- 
ence has  furnished  masses  of  data  that  yet  remain  unco- 
ordinated and  as  we  feel  the  need  of  a  deeper  synthesis 

•  In  the  last  few  paragraphs  I  have,  thanks  to  the  courtesy  of  the  editor 
of  the  Atlantic  Monthly,  freely  used  material  from  my  anonymous  article 
on  "Old  Age"  in  the  January,  1921,  number. 

411 


SENESCENCE 

we  grope  our  way  to  a  bed-rock  of  first  principles  that 
will  explain  the  riddle  of  life  better  and  give  it  more 
unity  and  give  us  new  personal  satisfaction.  Tendencies 
that  have  been  repressed  during  our  active  life  revive. 
Perhaps  we  take  up  fads  or  occupations  that  have 
hitherto  had  only  a  secondary  place  in  our  lives  or  in- 
dulge ourselves  by  giving  them  now  the  first  place  as 
centers  of  interest.  Now  at  last  we  can  do  things  we 
have  long  wanted  to  do  but  for  which  we  have  had  no 
time  or  strength.  We  can  also  now  indulge  our  taste 
in  reading  in  fields  we  have  long  desired  to  know  better, 
can  abandon  ourselves  to  the  enjoyment  of  music  or 
the  fine  arts;  or  we  travel,  collect,  or  occupy  ourselves 
with  horticulture,  agriculture  or  farm  life.  Again,  there 
are  more  reveries  and  these  most  commonly  gravitate 
to  things  about  us  or  especially  to  the  remote  past.  Thus 
we  often  revive  and  idealize  old  situations  and  incidents. 
We  think  of  things  we  said  and  did  and  supplement 
them  by  imagining  what  we  could,  would,  or  should  have 
said  and  done  and  fill  lost  opportunities  fuller  of  "might- 
have-beens."  Yet  many  as  are  the  lost  chances  such 
retrospect  brings  to  view,  and  imperfect  as  we  realize 
our  responses  to  circumstances  and  the  environment  have 
been,  we  are  rarely  oppressed  by  regret  and  still  less 
often  by  remorse,  so  that  the  wish  to  relive  our  lives 
is  never  very  strong.  The  flaws  in  our  surroundings 
or  our  errors  in  judgment,  even  in  moral  conduct,  are 
usually  regarded  with  leniency  and  viewed  with  a  cer- 
tain detachment,  however  clearly  they  are  seen  and 
however  impersonally  they  are  judged.  This  is  in  part 
because  we  have  to  accept  them  as  inevitable  and  are 
trying  to  make  a  virtue  of  so  doing,  but  yet  more  per- 
haps because  we  are  consoled  by  the  fact  that  had  our 
mistakes  been  very  grave  we  should  not  have  attained 
our  advanced  age  in  such  good  condition  of  body  and 
mind.  Thus  we  make  our  very  age  a  kind  of  vindica- 

412 


SOME  CONCLUSIONS 

tion  of  our  course  of  life.  We  find  yet  more  comfort 
in  the  fact  that  we  discover  so  many  points  in  which 
things  might  have  been  worse.  We  have  escaped  so 
many  perils  and  survived  so  many  trials  that  have  over- 
whelmed many  others  that,  on  the  whole,  we  deem  our- 
selves among  the  fortunate  of  the  earth. 

I  am  inclined  to  think  that  the  above,  instead  of  being 
an  optimistic  should  rather  be  regarded  on  the  whole 
as  a  pessimistic  view  of  old  age.  Fielding  Hall  tells  us 
that  in  Burma,  where  it  is  purest,  Buddhism  teaches 
men  to  "die  thinking  on  their  good  deeds."  I  cannot 
believe  this  is  final  but  opine  rather  that  old  age  has 
its  positive  duties  to  the  present  and  to  the  future  as 
well  as  its  privileges  and  immunities.  To  be  sure,  if 
sex  love  is  the  mainspring  of  the  most  and  best  in  the 
human  psyche,  it  follows  that  when  this  goes  there  is 
little  worth  while  left  in  us.  Hence,  the  implications 
of  the  new  analytic  psychology  are  most  tragic  for 
senescence  and  man  is  doomed  to  spend  the  shriveled 
remnants  of  life  in  the  contemplation  of  its  only  real 
stage,  which  is  now  gone  or  fast  vanishing.  I  urge,  on 
the  contrary,  that  the  facts  of  the  soul-life  of  the  aged 
teach  us  very  clearly  that  if  the  vita  sexualis  has  been 
anything  like  normal,  we  graduate  from  it  into  a  larger 
love  of  man,  nature,  and  being  itself  which  can  never 
be  complete  till  the  urge  of  sex  has  waned. 

What  are  these  facts?  First,  the  very  incident  that 
the  old  tend  to  develop  more  sharply  their  own  individu- 
ality as  the  powers  of  genesis  decline  points  in  this 
direction.  Senescents  in  the  post-climacteric  acuminate 
their  personality,  sometimes  to  the  point  of  idiosyncrasy 
and  eccentricity.  The  Ich-trieb  now  has  its  innings. 
This  selfishness  of  the  old,  repulsive  and  unsocial  as 
are  now  its  commonest  manifestations,  expresses  a  deep 
instinct  that  is  really  groping  toward  a  new  and  higher 
type  of  personality,  evolving  a  new  synthesis  of  the 

413 


SENESCENCE 

factors  of  life  when  the  chord  of  sex  shall  have  passed 
in  music  out  of  sight.  It  means  man's  reaffirmation  of 
the  self  and  of  the  will-to-live,  although  this  points  not, 
as  the  immortalists  would  argue,  to  a  post-mortem  re- 
habilitation of  the  ego  but  only  expresses  again  the  fact 
that  man  is  as  yet  incomplete  here  and  that  even  the  old 
now  die  prematurely  because  they  have  not  yet  learned 
how  to  build  the  last  story  of  the  house  of  many  man- 
sions. 

Again,  as  sex  love  declines  friendship  takes  its  place. 
Old  lovers,  and  husbands  and  wives  if  happily  mated, 
become  friends  and  find  new  joys  in  these  new  relations. 
How  we  prize  old  friends  and  feel  closer  even  to  those 
of  our  contemporaries  we  have  known  but  slightly!  A 
fine  old  man  of  my  acquaintance  made  a  systematic 
effort  by  many  letters  to  get  into  touch  with  all  his  old 
schoolmates  who  were  living  and  to  learn  all  he  could 
of  those  who  were  dead.  Another  felt  wronged  when- 
ever a  friend  of  earlier  days  died  and  he  had  no  word 
of  it.  Yet  another  wrote  to  a  venerable  colleague  whom 
he  knew  but  slightly,  but  whose  career  he  had  followed, 
exhorting  him  "not  to  die  yet  a  while"  because  he  would 
feel  more  lonely  in  the  world  with  him  out  of  it.  There 
is  a  unique  loyalty  of  veterans  of  war  toward  each  other, 
although  they  are  little  together  and  do  not  always  get 
on  well  with  each  other  if  they  attempt  intimacy.  More- 
over, there  is  a  new  type  of  interest  in  young  people 
and  in  children,  whom  even  grandmothers  do  not  so 
much  fondle  and  pet  as  indulge  and  serve  in  ways 
mothers  do  not  always  sympathize  with.  The  "Bor- 
rowed Time"  clubs  of  old  men  and  young  people's 
associations  are  both  based  chiefly  upon  the  gregarious 
instinct  which  is  strongest  among  adolescents,  before 
woman  has  taken  her  place  beside  man,  and  among 
senescents  when  the  charm  of  sex  as  such  abates.  Most 
of  the  scores  of  associations  and  fraternities  of  men  of 
414 


SOME  CONCLUSIONS 

mature  years  are  for  material  advantage  and  the  typical 
clubman  has  failed  to  find,  or  else  has  lost,  the  normal 
anchorage  of  the  true  home.  The  homosexual  friend- 
ships of  the  old  are  not  chummy  and  do  not  demand 
close  contact.  These  have  been  far  too  much  neglected 
and  their  cultivation,  which  is  greatly  needed,  is  possible 
under  modern  conditions  as  never  before.  It  is  interest- 
ing to  know  that  an  old  people's  journal  is  projected. 

Love  in  the  aged  also  tends  to  broaden  into  the  higher 
and  more  sublimated  form  of  interest  in  the  subhuman 
world,  in  animals,  plants,  trees,  gardening,  and  country 
life  generally.  The  charm  of  a  rural  contrasted  with 
an  urban  environment  increases.  How  often  the  old 
take  pleasure  in  planting  or  setting  out  trees  they  will 
never  see  mature  or  bear  fruit  and  in  building  homes 
they  know  they  can  at  best  live  in  but  for  a  short  time. 
Burbank  knew  and  Burroughs  felt  this  and  Cato  said 
that  all  the  aged  should  dwell  in  the  country,  as  so  many 
of  the  old  Romans  did.  The  aged  rarely  have  animal 
pets  but  they  do  feel  a  new  dread  of  destroying  life. 
They  love  scenery  and  commune  with  forests  and  moun- 
tains; revisit  their  rural  boyhood  homes  and  find  deep 
satisfaction  in  reenvisaging  old  landmarks. 

They  are,  as  we  have  seen,  very  susceptible  to  climate 
and  to  weather  changes,  which  they  often  become 
sagacious  in  predicting,  and  sometimes  keep  note  of 
rain,  snowfall,  temperature,  wind,  the  phases  of  the 
moon,  etc.,  and  are  not  only  accredited  oracles  in  weather 
wisdom  but  are  appealed  to  as  local  weather  bureaus 
with  amazing  memory  for  exceptional  climatic  phe- 
nomena for  years  back.  Thus  it  is  that  their  sympathies 
often  widen  until  they  become  almost  animistic  for 
things  without  life  and  may  come  almost  to  personify 
ships,  vehicles,  and  machines.  What  takes  place  within 
the  soul  of  an  old  man  alone  with  nature  our  imperfect 
psychology  cannot  tell;  nor  does  he  yet  know.  It  is 

415 


SENESCENCE 

something  resumptive,  preparatory  for  mingling  with 
the  elements,  as  he  will  ere  long  do.  His  consciousness 
is  a  poor  witness  of  what  transpires  in  the  depths  of  his 
soul,  for  he  only  knows  that  the  experience  of  such 
influences  gives  him  a  new  poise  and  calm  that  is  sweet 
if  it  is  also  sad.  It  is  in  such  experiences  that  our  nature 
points  the  way  to  the  chief  palliative  of  the  ghastly 
death  thought.  In  this  direction  lies  the  true  way  back 
to  the  all-mother  of  life,  to  the  great  womb  of  existence 
whence  we  come  and  to  which  we  must  all  return. 

By  various  devices  nature  tends  to  keep  the  number 
of  males  and  females  nearly  equal.  But  when  long 
periods  of  hardship,  especially  wars,  reduce  the  relative 
number  of  males,  this  inequality  is  rectified  by  an  in- 
crease in  the  number  of  males  born ;  while  in  long  periods 
of  tranquillity  females  tend  to  outnumber  males.  This 
is  well  established  by  the  statistics  of  natality.  Whether 
nature  would  thus  make  good  any  such  sharp  reduction 
in  the  relative  number  of  females  is  less  demonstrable, 
because  there  is  no  such  cause  of  sudden  decimation  of 
this  sex.  Women  do  not  go  to  war  with  each  other. 
This  suggests  the  question  whether  nature  also  tends 
to  regulate  the  proportion  between  the  old  and  the 
young  where  this  has  been  abnormally  disturbed.  We 
have  already  seen  that  in  new  communities  opened  up 
and  settled  by  vigorous  younger  men  the  relative  number 
of  old  men,  though  not  of  old  women,  soon  increases 
because  it  is  the  most  viable  who  respond  to  the  call  of 
adventure  and  pioneering  and  who  thus,  barring  the 
effects  of  hardship,  tend  to  live  longer  than  the  less 
enterprising  who  remain  behind.  Selection  was  less 
operative  for  women  who  went  because  their  men  did. 
So  far  as  we  may  identify  youth  with  progressiveness 
and  age  with  conservatism,  we  may  safely  conclude  that 
nature  does  exercise  the  same  regulative  function  here 
as  in  making  good  sex  disparity.  At  any  rate,  radical 
416 


SOME  CONCLUSIONS 

new  departures  always  bring  reactions.  Now,  young 
communities  and  countries  have  short,  old  ones  long, 
memories.  In  the  former,  experience  counts  too  little; 
in  the  latter,  too  much.  The  one  tends  to  act  perhaps 
too  precipitately,  the  other  to  deliberate  too  long.  In 
one,  precedent  and  tradition  have  but  little,  in  the  other 
excessive,  weight.  The  one  tends  to  make  the  most  and 
best  of  their  present  opportunity,  while  the  other  is 
chiefly  concerned  that  no  good  thing  of  the  past  be 
jeopardized.  Thus,  the  tide  of  progress,  which  is  always 
marked  by  alternating  waves  of  reform  and  stabiliza- 
tion, is  regulated  and  the  most  fundamental  moral  basis 
of  all  party  distinctions  is  age.  In  this  sense  there  are 
always  two,  and  only  two,  sides  to  every  question ;  two, 
and  only  two,  parties  in  every  state,  town,  and  family: 
the  old  and  the  young.  Their  harmonious  action  and 
reaction  constitutes  the  most  favorable  condition  for 
real  progress.  Age  is  far-sighted  and  synthetic,  youth 
myopic  and  analytic;  but  public  and  private  welfare  need 
both,  just  as  science  needs  both  the  microscope  and  the 
telescope. 

All  sciences,  most  of  all  those  that  deal  with  man,  are 
liable  to  lack  the  perspective  that  only  age  can  give  to 
orient  them  to  direct  their  researches  toward  problems 
of  most  value  and  hold  them  steadily  to  their  true  course. 
Even  the  ablest  and  most  ingenuous  of  6ur  young  sociol- 
ogists are  most  prone  to  lose  sight  of  wider  relations  and 
come  to  focus  in  partial  and  extreme  views,  for  extreme 
opinions  are  always  easiest  and  in  trying  to  cope  with 
theories  too  vast  for  our  powers  even  sane  and  vigorous 
minds  show  the  same  traits  as  feeble,  neurotic,  and  in- 
fantile ones,  which  find  even  the  problems  of  their  lim- 
ited personal  lives  too  hard  for  them  to  solve. 

In  the  field  of  psychology  we  have  now  perfected  a 
methodology  of  introspection  that  seeks  to  be  as  exact  as 
physics  or  chemistry  in  going  back  to  elemental  sensa- 

417 


SENESCENCE 

tions  as  if  they  were  elements  from  which  all  higher 
forms  of  mental  activity  were  to  be  evolved  by  logic  as 
rigorous  as  mathematics  itself  and  that  ignores  evolu- 
tion. We  also  have  a  behaviorism  that  focuses  upon 
activities  and  physiological  processes  and  would  evict  the 
term  consciousness,  which  is  the  muse  of  introspection. 
The  psychoanalysts,  again,  are  most  genetic  and  would 
evolve  nearly  all  psychic  phenomena  from  sex  by  mech- 
anisms that  are  as  sacred  to  them  as  were  innate  ideas 
to  scholastics  and  philosophers  before  Locke,  and  their 
work  is  still  taboo  to  most  orthodox  psychologists. 
Fourth,  we  have  the  testers  who  are  intent  upon  applying 
psychology  to  the  grading  of  intelligence  and  the  stand- 
ardization and  calibration  of  abilities.  All  this  work  is 
valuable  but  how  grievously  we  just  now  need  the 
broader  synthetic  view  that  only  age  and  experience  can 
fully  realize  and  really  ought  to  supply.  Age  sees  more 
clearly  than  youth  that  studies  of  the  brain,  of  children, 
of  instincts,  animals,  prehistoric  man,  the  insane,  de- 
fectives, the  sexes,  intellect,  will,  feelings,  and  even  of 
the  history  of  philosophy  and  religion  are  essential  for  a 
sound  knowledge  of  man.  For  to  the  real  anthropologist 
nothing  human  is  alien.  He  alone  sees  that  the  real  value 
of  all  such  special  work  is  what  it  contributes  to  enable 
us  to  make  our  lives  fuller,  better,  and  more  worth  living. 
In  religion,  most  of  even  our  authorized  leaders  show 
symptoms  of  dementia  pnecox  in  clinging  to  juvenile 
attitudes  that  should  have  long  since  been  sloughed  off. 
They  still  antagonize  Darwinism,  the  higher  criticism, 
and  the  great  philosophies  of  pantheism,  which,  rightly 
interpreted,  constitute  the  religion  of  mature  and  normal 
senescent  souls.  In  this  oldest  of  all  culture  fields  the 
world  has  suffered  most  grievous  arrest.  The  fact  that 
in  this  direction  the  old  have  generally  so  often  been  most 
reactionary,  if  not  infantile,  is  one  of  the  most  grievous 
of  all  their  shortcomings.  Here  they  should  lead,  as  in 
418 


SOME  CONCLUSIONS 

more  primitive  times  they  often  did.  The  church  has  too 
little  use  for  its  aging  teachers  but  prefers  young  clergy- 
men. Happily,  however,  a  few  of  them  are  now  helping 
to  build  this  higher  story  of  the  culture  temple  of  the  race 
and  have  bid  adieu  to  the  mad  immortality  quest  born  of 
the  age  of  sexual  potency  and  which  should  decline  and 
die  with  it.  In  this,  as  in  perhaps  no  other  field,  old  age 
should  thus  be  constructive  and  build  mansions  for  itself 
and  it  will  never  attain  the  dignity  nature  suggests  for 
it  until  it  does  so.  This  does  not  mean  that  its  verdicts 
should  be  authoritative  for  other  periods  of  life  since,  as 
with  each  of  these,  its  findings  are  not  absolute  but  true 
only  for  its  own  stage.  But  when  senescence  has  found 
and  accepted  the  faith  that  fits  its  nature  and  needs,  this 
will  at  least  serve  to  mitigate  the  fanaticism  of  young 
converts,  rebuke  ratiocination,  which  has  so  long  im- 
pelled immature  minds  to  make  dogma  out  of  religious 
literature,  and  check  the  intolerance  of  intellectual  ortho- 
doxy. 

So  in  all  departments  of  life  the  function  of  competent 
old  age  is  to  sum  up,  keep  perspective,  draw  lessons,  par- 
ticularly moral  lessons.  Homer,  tradition  tells  us,  was 
an  old  man  who  synthesized  many  legends  before  unor- 
ganized, somewhat  as  Moses  was  said  to  have  done  in 
composing  the  Pentateuch.  The  dialogues  of  Plato  that 
deal  with  the  deepest  problems  are,  by  general  consent, 
ascribed  to  his  old  age.  Most  of  the  prophets  were  old 
and  even  the  Gospel,  which  represented  the  terminal 
phase  of  apostolic  inspiration,  is  ascribed  to  the  very 
aged  John.  The  Confucian  system  is  preeminently  a 
product  of  the  senium  that  had  seen  the  vanities  of  the 
world;  and  especially  of  all  cults  of  the  transcendental. 
Herodotus,  Thucydides,  and  Strabo  were  said  to  have 
been  old.  Wells'  synoptical  history  not  only  meets  the 
needs  of  the  old  but  is  something  a  wise  old  man  might 
well  have  undertaken.  The  popular  lectures  of  not  a  few 
419 


SENESCENCE 

leaders  of  science — DuBois-Reymond,  Helmholtz,  Hux- 
ley, Haeckel,  and  many  others — are  products  of  fertile 
minds  unifying  their  life  work,  as  befits  scientists,  before 
their  powers  fail,  subjecting  it  to  the  supreme  test  by 
acceptance  of  the  consensus  of  competent  contem- 
poraries and  thus  affirming  the  influential  immortality 
of  the  authors. 

The  late  James  Bryce,  at  the  age  of  84,  said 
words  of  supreme  wisdom  on  national  and  international 
affairs  at  the  Williamstown  conference.  Who  is  not 
heartened  to  know  that  Ranke  wrote  his  famous  Welt- 
geschichte — I  think  in  five  volumes — beginning  at  the 
age  of  85 ;  that  Michelangelo  was  drawing  the  plans  of 
St.  Peters  at  90;  that  Cornaro  wrote  his  last  version  of 
The  Temperate  Life  at  95 ;  that  W.  S.  Smith  made  his 
memorable  trip  around  the  world  alone  at  the  age  of  80; 
that  Durand  edited  a  volume  of  his  at  no.  And  it  is 
satisfying  to  find  not  only  scores  but  hundreds  of  such 
records,  ancient  and  modern. 

Again,  if  youth  creates,  age  not  only  conserves  but 
organizes.  Both  these  functions  are  essential  in  human 
society  and  are  related  somewhat  as  are  reproductive  and 
connective  tissue,  as  we  saw  in  Chapter  VI.  Both  youth 
and  age  seek  truth  and  thrill  when  they  feel  a  deep  senti- 
ment of  inner  conviction.  But  age  lays  more  stress  upon 
the  pragmatic  sanction  of  working  well  and  can  better 
understand  even  Loyola  and  Machiavelli.  Thus  it  came 
that  while  men  in  their  prime  conceived  the  great  re- 
ligions, the  old  made  them  prevail.  Thus,  too,  instituted 
and  dogmatic  religion  owes  its  existence  chiefly  to  men 
past  the  meridian  of  life.  The  old  did  not  invent  belief 
in  supernatural  powers  or  persons  but  needed  and  used 
it  to  sustain  their  position  when  physical  inferiority 
would  have  otherwise  compelled  them  to  step  aside  and 
so  they  made  themselves  mediators  between  gods  and 
men.  They  directed  and  presided  over  rites  and  cere- 
420 


SOME  CONCLUSIONS 

monies  and  took  possession  of  the  keys  of  the  next  world, 
enforced  orthodoxies  for  the  sake  of  order,  and  estab- 
lished and  equipped  the  young  to  aid  them  in  this  work. 
They  were  behind  the  scenes  and  held  the  secrets,  realiz- 
ing the  utility  to  society  and  also  to  themselves  of  much 
for  which  they  had  lost  the  primitive  ardor  of  belief. 
Thus  the  revivalist  and  the  reformer  have  always  found 
the  old  arraigned  against  them.  Perhaps  they  resent 
"new  bottles"  even  more  then  they  do  new  wine. 

In  the  domain  of  sex,  so  vitally  bound  up  with  religion, 
the  Hebrew  race  first  taught  the  world  and  most  of  this 
wisdom  came  from  the  old,  against  whom  the  rise  of 
romantic  love  was  one  of  the  greatest  revolts  in  the  his- 
tory of  culture.  In  many  primitive  societies  the  old,  as 
we  have  seen,  initiate  the  young  of  the  same  and  even 
of  the  opposite  sex  into  its  mysteries,  and  in  modern 
mores,  as  for  example,  in  France,  the  counsels  of  the  old 
are  still  of  influence  in  the  matings  of  the  young.  It  is 
they  who  insist  on  prudential  considerations  and  warn 
against  venery  and  the  follies  into  which  blind  Eros  may 
lead.  They  have  seen  and  know  each  scene  in  the  stormy 
drama  to  the  fall  of  the  curtain.  Thus  to-day,  though 
less  only  in  degree,  the  sharpest  phase  of  the  eternal  war- 
fare between  the  old  and  young  is  just  where  it  was  in 
the  ancient  tribes  in  which  the  old  barred  the  young  from 
the  females.  Youth  seeks  indulgence  and  resents  the  re- 
straint and  control  for  which  the  old  stand. 

This  eternal  war  between  the  young  and  the  old  begins 
at  birth  and  increases  with  every  restraint  and  prohibi- 
tion imposed  on  the  former  by  the  latter.  The  infant 
would  subject  its  mother's  life  to  its  service  and  the 
psychoanalysts  who  urge  that  we  begin  life  with  a  sense 
of  omnipotence  are  quite  as  near  right  as  those  who,  like 
Schleiermacher,  found  this  stage  of  life  characterized  by 
a  feeling  of  absolute  dependence,  of  which  he  thought  all 
religions  are  formulations.  Both  are  always  present  and 

421 


SENESCENCE 

in  incessant  conflict,  now  one  and  now  the  other  predom- 
inating. The  child  revolts,  yet  must  submit  and  obey  its 
elders.  It  asserts  its  freedom  by  defiance,  evasion,  run- 
ning away,  by  deceits,  by  fancies  of  escaping  all  control 
and  doing  all  it  wishes.  It  seeks  to  lead  its  own  life  and 
to  live  out  completely  its  present  state  regardless  of  all 
the  claims  of  the  future  and  of  all  domination  by  adults, 
whose  very  existence  much  of  his  play  ignores.  The 
father  especially  is  a  tyrant  and  is  often  hated  as  well  as 
loved.  Younger  children  are  always  bullied  by  older. 
Every  school  grade  seeks  to  dominate  that  below.  The 
teacher  is  always  imposing  a  wisdom  that  is  not  yet  de- 
manded by  the  child  and  that  is  accepted  by  it  unwill- 
ingly, cramming  the  memory  pouches  with  things  that 
can  be  only  imperfectly  appreciated,  picking  open  buds 
of  interest  and  knowledge  before  their  time,  imposing 
standards  that  are  too  grown  up,  checking  natural  ex- 
pressions of  instinct  and  insisting  on  discipline,  training, 
the  often  painful  acquisition  of  skills  and  conformity  to 
manifold  conventions.  There  is  always  a  sense  in  which 
the  school  is  an  offense  to  the  nature  of  the  child.  Older 
minds  prescribe  what  must  be  learned,  and  how,  and 
when,  and  the  scholiocentric  still  predominates  over  the 
paidocentric  method  of  education. 

The  state  also  subjects  youth  and  enforces  rights  of 
property  and  person  to  which  the  young  have  to  be 
broken  in.  All  kinds  and  degrees  of  apprenticeship  and 
the  age  and  meaning  of  attaining  majority  are  pre- 
scribed. In  many  lands  the  parents  control  the  marriage 
of  their  offspring  as  they  do  property  and  the  older 
make  and  administer  laws  for  the  younger.  After  all 
these  forms  and  degrees  of  servitude  of  the  younger  to 
the  older  it  is  no  wonder  that  the  former  not  only  very 
often  show  symptoms  of  revolt  all  the  way  from  the 
cradle  to  complete  maturity  but,  along  with  gratitude  and 
respect,  also  cherish,  if  more  unconsciously,  an  enmity 
422 


SOME  CONCLUSIONS 

that  they  can  neither  entirely  express  nor  control  against 
all  kinds  of  masters,  perhaps  especially  when  their  power 
and  authority  begin  to  wane  with  age.  The  push  of  the 
advancing  upon  the  retiring  generation  is  not  consciously 
to  feed  fat  such  ancient  grudges  by  subjecting  elders  in 
their  turn  as  they  were  once  subjected  and  yet  there  is  a 
deep  and  persistent  sense,  which  even  psychology  has  but 
little  realized,  in  which  every  advance  in  history,  every 
insurrection  or  rebellion,  every  protestant  movement 
against  the  established  order  or  custom,  and  every  re- 
form in  religion,  politics,  or  life  generally  is  only  an 
expression  of  the  eternal  revolt  of  youth  against  age,  of 
which  the  extreme  reaction  of  parricide  is  the  symbol 
but  which  is  the  deep  psychogenetic  root  of  every  degree 
of  failure  in  care  and  respect.  LeBon  7  sees  and  well 
presents  the  insurrectionary  tendencies  rife  in  the  world 
to-day  but  does  not  realize  the  extent,  nor  does  he  find  or 
seek  the  ultimate  cause,  of  the  present  universal  "revolt." 
Thus  the  aged  everywhere  still  suffer  from  the  imperfec- 
tions with  which  they  and  even  their  remote  forbears 
exercised  the  parental  function. 

On  the  other  hand,  it  should  not,  of  course,  be  forgot- 
ten that  there  is  always  the  more  obvious  and  counter- 
vailing tendency  to  respect  parents  as  age  brings  the 
insight  that  in  what  they  compelled  and  forbade  they 
were  wiser  than  we,  and  to  feel  grateful  that  they  did  not 
leave  us  to  follow  our  own  sweet  wills.  Just  so  far  as  we 
come  to  realize  not  only  how  they  lived  for  their  children 
and  did  so  wisely  and  well  we  both  love  them  more  for 
all  they  did  for  us,  and,  if  we  are  wise,  we  realize  that 
their  counsels  may  still  be  helpful  and  we  draw  the  moral 
that  there  is  always  somewhere  a  wisdom  superior  to  our 
own,  an  experience  from  which  we  may  profit,  and  an 
authority  somewhere  to  which  we  must  always  remain 

7  The  World  in  Revolt,  New  York,  1921,  256  pp. 
423 


SENESCENCE 

docile  and  toward  which  our  proper  attitude  is  that  of  a 
loyalty  that  is  essentially  filial.  It  is  of  this  impulse  that 
all  kinds  of  ancestor  worship  are  belated  expressions, 
while  at  the  same  time  it  is  compensatory  for  all  ill 
wishes  and  treatment  directed  toward  them  while  they 
lived.  In  a  finished  civilization  the  old  will  enjoy  their 
full  meed  of  reverence  while  they  are  yet  alive  and  every 
sort  of  post-mortem  canonization  will  be  seen  to  be  only 
the  symbol  of  a  devoir  present. 

Perhaps  in  the  large  Aristotelian  sense  of  the  word 
politics  is,  par  excellence,  the  work  of  and  for  old  age. 
Statecraft  must  look  not  at  the  transient  fluctuations  of 
current  and  popular  opinion  but  must  look  beyond  the 
present  or  the  next  election,  must  rise  above  the  selfish- 
ness of  party  interest  and  look  to  the  far  future.  It 
must  think  not  in  terms  of  the  exigencies  of  the  hour  but 
of  decades  and  generations  and  not  of  local  or  partisan 
but  of  national  and  humanistic  interests.  From  the 
patriarchs  down  the  old  have  been  the  wisest  shepherds 
of  the  people  and  if  young  men  have  succeeded  in  diplo- 
macy it  is  because  they  have  been  prodigies  of  precocity 
who  have  also  devoted  themselves  to  the  intensive  study 
of  history,  which  is  at  best  only  a  proxy  for  experience. 
To  have  read  ever  so  exhaustively  of  a  war  of  a  cen- 
tury before,  for  example,  can  give  the  young  student  no 
such  sense  of  its  horrors,  nor  of  the  urgency  of  using 
every  honorable  means  of  averting  it,  as  to  have  actually 
lived  through  it  with  a  vivid  personal  memory  of  its 
incidents.  Veterans  of  old  wars  would  be  cautious  about 
entering  new  ones. 

Thus  it  is  well  that  the  old  are  with  us  "lest  we  forget" 
and  in  exigencies  we  often  turn  to  them  if  living  and  read 
and  quote  them  with  respect  long  after  they  are  dead. 
Great  statesmen  are  those  who  have  not  only  identified 
themselves  with  the  past,  present,  and  future  of  the 
nations  they  serve  but  beyond  this  have  felt  themselves 

424 


SOME  CONCLUSIONS 

charged  with  the  interests  of  mankind  as  a  whole.  We 
surely  need  all  possible  ripeness  of  knowledge  and  ma- 
turity of  judgment  in  this  field  and  if  the  span  of  experi- 
ence personally  demanded  by  leaders  could  have  been  a 
full  century,  many  of  the  great  disasters  that  have  be- 
fallen the  race  might  have  been  avoided. 

The  fact  is  that,  as  the  Athenians  seemed  to  the  old 
Egyptian  priest  who  had  known  of  Atlantis,  we  are  all 
children  who  have  to  play  the  role  of  real  adults  because 
the  latter  have  not  yet  arrived,  so  they  we  have  come  to 
think  ourselves  really  mature. 

Again,  if  the  young  are  the  best  advocates,  the  old  are 
by  nature  the  best  judges.  They  can  best  weigh  facts 
and  ideas  in  the  scale  of  justice.  The  moral  faculties 
ripen  more  slowly.  Thus  the  old  can  best  supplement  the 
technicalities  of  law  by  equity  and  give  ethics  its  rights 
in  their  verdicts.  They  should  be  the  keepers  of  the 
standards  of  right  and  wrong  and  mete  out  justice  with 
the  impartiality  and  aloofness  that  befit  it.  Even  in 
private  life  we  have  a  judicial  function,  which,  though 
often  ignored  and  even  resented,  is  also  often  sought  and 
respected  if  we  have  the  tact  to  praise  and  do  not  be- 
come censorious.  Our  approval  or  disapproval,  even  if 
mild  and  unspoken,  may  count  for  more  than  is  admitted 
or  even  realized  by  our  family  and  friends. 

Such  philosophy  as  my  life  and  studies  have  taught 
me  begins  and  ends  in  the  thesis  that  the  supreme  crite- 
rion of  everything,  including  religion,  science,  art,  prop- 
erty, business,  education,  hygiene,  and  every  human  in- 
stitution and  everything  in  our  environment,  is  what  it 
contributes  to  make  life  longer,  fuller,  and  saner,  so  that 
each  individual  shall  live  out  more  completely  all  the 
essentials  in  the  life  of  the  race.  If  the  best  survive,  it  is 
not  the  good  but  the  bad  and  unfit  who  die  young.  To 
have  lived  long  but  narrowly  is  just  as  bad.  Both  have 
really  only  half  lived  and  it  is  just  those  who  have  failed 

425 


SENESCENCE 

of  realizing  their  full  humanity  in  this  life  that  most  feel 
the  need  of  another  and  imprecate  the  cosmos  as  having 
cheated  them  if  it  has  not  provided  one.  A  rich  old  age 
is  thus  the  supreme  reward  of  virtue.  Thus  what  is 
education  but  fitting  us  for  a  more  advanced  stage  of  life. 
It  consists  largely  in  giving  to  the  young  the  products  of 
older  minds  and  thus  advancing  our  mental  age  beyond 
our  years.  Childhood  longs  to  die  into  youth  and  youth 
into  maturity  and  so  the  latter  in  its  turn  should  long  to 
pass  away  into  age.  And  how  childish  much  in  the  adult 
world  seems  to  those  who  have  achieved  the  true  sage- 
hood  of  age ;  and  how  unripe,  full  of  folly,  vanity,  error, 
and  passion !  How  little  the  world  has  realized  its  debt 
in  the  past  to  aging  men  and  women  in  whom  knowledge 
has  ripened  into  wisdom  and  how  much  more  age  owes 
and  will  yet  give  to  the  world  when  human  life  becomes 
complete  and  realizes  its  higher  possibilities! 

Now,  too,  many  of  those  who  attain  advanced  years  are 
battered,  water-logged,  leaky  derelicts  without  cargo  or 
crew,  chart,  rudder,  sail,  or  engine,  remaining  afloat 
only  because  they  have  struck  no  fatal  rocks  or  because 
the  storms  have  not  quite  yet  swamped  them;  or,  to 
change  the  figure,  because  they  have  withered,  not 
ripened,  on  the  tree.  How  many  of  us  really  ought  to  be 
dead  because  we  are  useless  to  ourselves  and  to  others. 
It  is  because  there  are  so  many  such  that  the  role  as- 
signed to  the  best  of  us  is  often  so  hard  and  so  repugnant 
to  our  nature  and  to  our  needs.  Hence  it  comes  that  we 
are  not  only  handicapped  but  are  sorely  tempted  to  accept 
a  sham  old  age  that  is  false  to  all  the  best  that  is  in  us, 
instead  of  justifying  and  illustrating  a  better  one. 

Thus,  in  fine,  all  not  later  than  the  fourth  decade  or 
whenever  they  note  that  their  youth  has  fled  or  that  any 
of  their  powers  have  begun  to  abate,  should  not  only 
boldly  face  the  fact  that  they  are  aging  but  begin  serious 
preparations  for  old  age,  so  that  this  stage  of  life  be  not 

426 


SOME  CONCLUSIONS 

only  happier  but  more  efficient  than  it  is  and  that  it  ren- 
der to  the  world  a  service  never  so  needed  and  never  so 
possible  to  render  as  now.  Men  and  women  in  all  the 
earlier  and  often  in  the  later  postmeridional  phases  of 
life  are  cowards  in  facing  for  themselves  and  arrant 
tricksters  in  deceiving  others  about  their  physiological 
and  psychological  age.  If  all  the  psychic  energy  now 
directed  to  concealment,  pretense,  and  the  maintenance 
of  illusions  here  were  put  to  better  uses,  then  health,  pro- 
longation of  life,  and  efficiency  in  later  decades,  to  say 
nothing  of  happiness,  would  be  greatly  increased.  The 
dawn  of  adolescence,  like  that  of  senescence,  has  its 
peculiar  possibilities  and  its  very  trying  probationary 
years  before  the  age  of  nubility;  but  youth  always  has 
the  advantage,  if  it  will  only  utilize  it,  of  the  counsels  of 
those  who  have  weathered  its  storm  and  stress.  There 
is  a  vast  amount  of  wreckage  from  which  puberty  often 
suffers.  The  old,  however,  have  no  older  initiators  into 
the  last  stage  of  life  and  must  find  or  make  their  own 
way  as  best  they  can.  But  they  should  realize  that  all 
the  fluctuations  and  circumnutation  phenomena  they 
experience  in  the  middle  decades  of  life  are  gropings 
toward  new  adjustments  in  the  domain  of  hygiene  and 
morale  that  are  necessary  when  their  income  of  vital 
energy  does  not  quite  balance  its  expenditure.  All  these 
phenomena  are  really  only  labor  pains  by  which  nature  is 
trying  to  bring  into  the  world  a  new  and  higher  and  more 
complete  humanity.  To  repeat,  our  function  is  to  finish  a 
structure  that  still  lacks  an  upper  story  and  give  it  an 
outlook  or  conning  tower  from  which  man  can  see  more 
clearly  the  far  horizon  and  take  his  bearings  now  and 
then  by  the  eternal  stars. 

The  old  who  are  really  so,  who  are  not  merely  spent 
projectiles,  relics,  vestiges,  or  ruins  that  time  has  chanced 
to  spare,  do  sometimes  attain  vision  and  even  prophetic 
power,  and  their  last  real  words  to  the  world  they  are 

427 


SENESCENCE 

leaving  are  not  like  the  inane  babblings  of  the  dying, 
which  friends  so  often  cherish,  but  are  often  the  best  and 
most  worth  heeding  by  their  juniors  of  all  their  counsels. 
Some  have  told  us  that  if  the  long-awaited  superman 
ever  arrives,  he  will  come  by  way  of  the  prolongation  of 
adolescence  and  others  have  said  it  would  be  by  the  fuller 
maturity  of  man  in  his  prime.  No  doubt  both  these 
stages  of  life  would  be  enriched  and  potentialized,  but  his 
first  advent  and  his  greatest  improvement  over  man  of 
to-day  will  be  in  the  form  of  glorified  old  age.  Nietzsche 
was  right  in  making  Zarathustra  old  and  he  himself  was 
the  overman  whose  message  he  brought  to  the  world. 
He  was  intent  on  the  future  of  man  and  not  on  his  pres- 
ent, still  less  on  his  past.  Thus  the  ideal  old  man  will  be 
chiefly  concerned  for  what  is  yet  to  be.  Whatever  he 
knows  of  history,  he  is  more  concerned  with  the  better 
history  not  yet  written  because  it  has  not  yet  happened. 
If  he  thinks  of  his  childhood  and  his  forbears,  he  thinks 
still  more  of  posterity.  His  chief  desire  is  to  see  the 
young  better  born  and  better  provided  for  so  as  to  come 
to  a  fuller  maturity. 

In  fine,  it  cannot  be  too  strongly  urged  or  too  often 
repeated  that  at  present  we  know  little  of  old  age  and 
that  little  is  so  predominantly  of  its  inferior  specimens, 
its  unfavorable  traits  and  defects  and  limitations,  that 
the  old  have  been  prone  to  repudiate  their  years.  Some 
even  in  the  seventies  and  eighties  to  whom  I  ventured  to 
send  my  questionnaire  resented  it  as  imputing  to  them  an 
age  they  denied  all  knowledge  of,  while  others  had  come 
precociously  to  not  only  accept  a  padded  life  but  to  even 
crave  services  and  sympathy  and  demand  privileges  and 
immunities  to  which  they  were  not  entitled,  thus 
growing  querulous  because  of  a  helplessness  more  af- 
fected than  real.  The  fundamental  passion  of  the  nor- 
mal old  is  to  serve,  to  subordinate  self,  and,  if  in  some 
ways  they  must  be  served,  to  help  others  in  turn  in  such 
428 


SOME  CONCLUSIONS 

ways  as  they  can.  This  instinct  of  expropriation  of  self 
is  the  voice  of  nature  pointing  to  the  effacement  that 
awaits  them.  The  fact  that  age  is  so  often  selfish  should 
not  blind  us  to  the  fact  that  in  its  true  nature  it  is  altru- 
istic and  thus  in  its  later  stages  often  finds  its  greatest 
trial  in  the  progressive  abatement  of  its  power  of 
actually  benefiting  others.  Its  greatest  bitterness  is  that 
it  must  be  so  much  ministered  to,  and  one  of  my  corre- 
spondents regretted  that  he  could  not  die  at  sea  or  his 
corpse,  when  he  was  done  with  it,  be  left  to  nature  so  that 
his  relatives  might  not  have  the  fuss  of  a  funeral  and 
burial.  Indeed,  he  seemed  to  have  grown  morbid  about 
the  trouble  he  was  thus  to  make  them.  Even  the  new 
love  of  the  country  and  of  inanimate  as  well  as  animate 
nature  into  which  they  are  soon  to  be  resolved  may  be 
another  outcrop  of  the  deep  but  blind  and  groping  immo- 
lation motive.  It  is  love  disengaging  itself  from  persons 
and  special  objects  and  perfecting  itself  by  attaining  its 
goal,  which  is  nothing  less  than  the  love  of,  and  the 
resolution  of  self  into,  the  cosmos  from  which  we  sprang. 
Hence  there  is  a  sense  in  which  chemistry  and  physics, 
and  even  the  Einstein  doctrine  of  relativity,  are  studies 
of  man's  immortality. 

Old  age  and  death  are  eloquent  of  voices  that  call  us  to 
come  home  or  back  to  nature,  the  all-mother,  and  to  the 
earth  from  which  we  sprang  and  which  is  the  terminal 
resting  place  of  all  who  have  gone  before,  with  whose 
remains  our  dust  will  mingle.  The  more  we  know  of 
the  chemistry  and  physics  of  matter  and  energy,  and 
even  of  the  history,  constitution,  and  contents  of  the 
earth's  crust,  the  less  dreadful  do  the  grave  and  the 
processes  that  take  place  in  it  seem,  and  the  less  prone 
are  we  to  become  cowards,  slackers,  or  malingerers  in 
facing  the  Great  Enemy.  What  we  know  of  what  is  still 
often  called  brute  matter  shows  it  to  be  so  much  more 
dynamic  and  lawful  than  life  and  life  is  so  much  more 
429 


SENESCENCE 

fecund  and  complex  than  mind  that  there  is  now  a  new 
and  most  pregnant  sense  in  which  the  way  of  even  phys- 
ical death  is  upward,  not  downward.  Who,  too,  yet 
knows  just  how  much  of  the  charm  of  aesthetic  con- 
templation of  inanimate  nature  or  even  the  urge  that 
impels  science  to  know  ever  more  of  it  is  due  to  what  it 
does  and  will  entomb.  At  any  rate,  as  we  realize  far 
more  clearly  that  none  of  the  sons  of  men  ever  did  or 
ever  can  come  back,  we  can  now  find  some  compensation 
in  the  ever  clearer  understanding  of  the  immortality  of 
our  somatic  elements  and  see  the  meaning  of  the  deep 
instinct  that  inclines  the  old  to  the  country  and  to  closer 
communion  with  nature  as  they  withdraw  from  life. 

The  greatest  influence  of  the  old  upon  the  young  has, 
from  time  immemorial,  been  near  the  dawn  of  puberty, 
when  almost  every  race  initiates  youth  into  manhood. 
This,  too,  is  still  the  age  of  most  conversions  and  church 
confirmations.  Here  education  culminates  and  here,  too, 
in  a  sense,  it  began  and  extended  slowly  upward  toward 
the  university  and  downward  toward  the  kindergarten 
as  civilization  advanced.  The  age  of  nubility,  which  fol- 
lows, is  the  period  of  the  greatest  break  with  the  preced- 
ing generation  for  young  couples  generally  set  up  for 
themselves  and  the  increase  of  the  interval  between  gen- 
erations generally  means  a  prolonged  period  of  subjec- 
tion and  docility.  When  a  third  generation  was  added 
and  grandparents  became  common  in  the  families,  con- 
servative influences  were  increased,  and  if  four  living 
generations  ever  become  common  in  the  same  family 
progress  would  probably  be  retarded  and  great-grand- 
parents would  think  grandparents  more  or  less  radical 
or  innovative,  so  that  it  is  well  that  the  former  do  not 
linger  superfluous  on  the  stage  for  this  would  make  the 
tension  between  the  past  and  the  future  too  great.  Thus 
the  Great  Silencer's  work  of  oblivion  is  benign  for  the 
race. 

430 


SOME  CONCLUSIONS 

Such  excessive  contemporaneity  of  generations  is 
not  the  goal  of  eugenics,  for  while  it  tends  to  prolong 
life  it  also  increases  the  average  span  of  years  between 
generations  and  the  longer-lived  are  also  more  fecund. 
Should  it  ever  come  that  ancestors  of  half  a  dozen  or  a 
dozen  generations  live  together,  the  advance  of  the  world 
would  probably  be  greatly  retarded,  perhaps  to  the  point 
of  stagnation.  Therefore,  for  both  their  influence  and 
for  our  love  of  them  it  is  fortunate  that  they  are  well 
dead  and  live  only  in  our  memory,  in  the  vitality  they 
have  bequeathed  to  us,  and  in  the  works  that  follow  them. 
As  it  is,  it  is  old  minds  and  those  that  they  have  mainly 
influenced  that  have  kept  evolution,  which  is  more 
charged  with  culture  stimulus  than  any  influence  in  the 
modern  intellectual  world,  so  largely  out  of  our  educa- 
tional system.  It  is  due  to  them  that  so  large  a  part  of 
Christendom  has  repudiated  the  higher  criticism,  an- 
other great  achievement  that  has  reanimated  all  scrip- 
tures and  made  them  glow  with  a  new  light  and  has  given 
insight  and  zest  where  before  there  was  a  confusion  and 
indifference  that  kept  religious  consciousness  so  medieval 
and  ultra-conservative.  It  is  psychological  age  that 
makes  statesmen  suddenly  confronted  with  new  and  vast 
world  problems  too  large  for  them  take  refuge  in  the 
counsels  of  Washington,  which  were  wise  in  their  day 
but  utterly  inadequate  for  meeting  the  issues  of  our  own 
time. 

The  World  War  was  not  primarily  a  young  men's 
war,  for  most  of  them  were  sent  by  their  elders  and  met 
their  death  that  the  influence  of  the  latter  might  be  aug- 
mented. Men  may  be  made  senile  by  their  years  without 
growing  wise.  Thus  the  world  is  without  true  leaders 
in  this  hour  of  its  greatest  need  till  we  wonder  whether 
a  few  score  funerals  of  those  now  in  power  would  not  be 
our  greatest  boon.  A  psychological  senility  that  neither 
learns  nor  forgets  is  always  a  menace  and  a  check  instead 

431 


SENESCENCE 

of  being,  as  true  old  age  should  be,  a  guide  in  emergen- 
cies. Thus  we  have  not  grown  old  aright  and  are  para- 
lyzed by  a  wisdom  that  is  obsolete  or  barnacled  by  preju- 
dice. How  often  is  it  said  of  reforms  great  and  good 
that  they  are  earnestly  needed  and  entirely  practical  but 
must  wait  for  their  accomplishment  until  certain  vener- 
able but  obstructive  personages  of  a  generation  that  is 
passing  are  out  of  the  way,  because  they  are  prone  to 
think  the  old  good  and  the  new  bad,  and  that  every 
change,  therefore,  must  be  for  the  worse.  Thus  many 
live  too  long  and  undo  the  usefulness  of  their  earlier 
years. 

In  fine,  not  only  has  the  Western  world  now  lost  the 
exhilarating  sense  of  progress  that  has  for  generations 
sustained  and  inspired  it  but  civilization  faces  to-day 
dangers  of  decay  such  as  have  never  confronted  it  since 
the  incursion  of  the  barbarians  and  of  the  Moslems  into 
Europe.  Other  more  disastrous  wars  are  possible.  Class 
hatred  and  the  antagonisms  of  capital  and  labor,  national 
and  individual  greed,  race  jealousies  and  animosities,  the 
ferment  of  Bolshevism,  the  ascendency  of  the  ideals  of 
kultur  over  those  of  culture  in  our  institutions  for  higher 
education  in  every  land,  industrial  stagnation  and  unem- 
ployment, the  crying  lack  of  leaders  and  the  dominance 
of  mediocrity  everywhere,  the  decay  of  faith  and  the 
desiccation  of  religion,  the  waning  confidence  in  democ- 
racy :  these  are  the  prospects  we  must  face  if  we  are  not 
to  flee  from  reality  and  be  cowards  to  life  as  it  confronts 
us.  If  men  still  believed  in  an  omnipotent  all-wise  god 
they  would  expect  him  to  now  intervene  by  a  new,  per- 
haps a  third,  dispensation  such  as  Renan  believed  in. 
But  the  good  old  All-Father  that  saved  a  remnant  and 
drowned  the  rest  in  the  days  of  Noah  and  that  sent  His 
Son  later  to  save  the  world  when  it  seemed  lost  is  dead 
and  survives  only  as  a  memory,  and  we  realize  to-day 
that  man  must  be  his  own  savior  or  perish. 

432 


SOME  CONCLUSIONS 

There  seem  at  present  three  and  only  three  ways  of 
escape,  each  of  them  radical,  arduous,  slow,  and  perhaps 
desperate,  and  which  only  those  who  have  the  supreme 
power  of  presentification  or  the  genius  that  sees  all  prob- 
lems in  terms  of  the  here  and  now  can  clearly  discern. 
The  first  of  these  is  (i)  eugenics.  We  must  learn  to 
breed  a  better  race  of  men.  This  is,  indeed,  a  religion 
and  already  has  its  apostles  and  martyrs  and  a  growing 
body  of  disciples  who  are  propagandists  of  its  new  gos- 
pel. But  the  obstacles  of  ignorance  and  prejudice  are 
appalling.  The  fact  remains,  however,  as  poor  Nietzsche 
realized,  that  if  man  cannot  surpass  his  present  self  he 
is  lost. 

(2)  Others,  like  H.  G.  Wells  to-day  and  like  Comenius 
in  his  day,  see  our  chief  hope  not  so  much  in  nature  and 
preformation  as  in  nurture  and  epigenesis  and  would 
reconstruct,  vastly  enlarge,  and  unify  our  entire  educa- 
tional system,  reversing  many  a  present  consensus  to  the 
end  of  ultimately  obliterating  all  national  boundaries  and 
racial  prejudices  and  organizing  a  world  state,  "a  parlia- 
ment of  man,  a  federation  of  the  world." 

(3)  Others,  like  Metchnikoff  and  Bernard  Shaw,  look 
for  salvation  in  the  prolongation  of  human  life  that  man 
may  have  the  longer  apprenticeship  he  now  needs  in 
order  to  wisely  direct  the  ever  more  complex  affairs  of 
civilization.    Compared  with  the  task  it  now  imposes,  the 
wisest  and  ablest  are  only  children  and  the  disasters  of 
our  day  are  because  young  Phaethons  have  thought  they 
could  drive  the  chariot  of  the  sun  when  in  fact  they  were 
"nicht  dazu  gewachsen"    If  man  could  live  and  learn, 
not  seventy  but  two  or  three  times  seventy  years,  and 
could  begin  to  be  at  his  best  when  he  now  declines  and 
retires,  he  might  know  enough  to  guide  the  world  in  its 
true  course.    He  must  absorb  more  knowledge,  and  of  a 
different  kind,  and  assimilate  it  better  in  order  to  secrete 
the  wisdom  now  needed.    As  the  adolescent  decade  pre- 
433 


SENESCENCE 

pares  for  maturity,  so  the  senescent  decades  must  pre- 
pare for  old  age  and  look  forward  to  it  with  all  the  antici- 
pation with  which  youth  now  looks  forward  to  maturity. 
The  limitations  of  old  age  must  be  made  spurs  to  its 
greater  efficiency  just  as  so  many  in  middle  life  have  had 
to  do  with  the  chronic  handicaps  of  poor  health.  Two 
prevalent  traditions  must  be  ruthlessly  broken  and 
destroyed.  The  first  is  that  old  people's  hold  on  life  is  so 
precarious  that  medical  care  is  less  likely  to  be  rewarded 
with  success  than  at  earlier  stages  of  life.  The  fact  is 
that  normal  and  healthy  age  is  not  only  immune  to  many 
diseases  common  to  middle  life  but  often  has  exceptional 
recuperative  powers,  while  even  under  present  condi- 
tions the  percentage  of  deaths  is  not  so  very  much  in- 
creased at  seventy.  Physicians  who  specialize  in  geron- 
tology could  do  very  much  here.  The  other  vicious  tradi- 
tion is  that  retirement  or  marked  abatement  of  activity 
should  occur  at  a  certain  age.  This  ought  to  be  always  a 
personal  matter  and  all  who  can  really  "carry  on"  should 
do  so  with  all  the  powers  they  possess  as  long  as  they 
are  fully  able. 

An  "Indian  summer"  should  be  both  expected  and 
utilized  to  the  uttermost  for  this  is  a  precious  bud  of  vast 
potentialities.  In  it  we  already  glimpse  the  superhuman- 
ity  yet  to  be.  We  can  already  guess  something  of  the 
soteriological  functions  that  now  lie  concealed  and  are 
yet  to  be  revealed  in  it.  It  brings  a  new  poise  and  a  new 
perspective  of  values  and  hence  a  new  orientation  and 
new  and  deeper  insights  into  essentials.  The  very  fact 
that  the  old  who  have  approximated  ever  so  remotely  this 
ideal  have  so  far  been  exceptions  and,  in  a  sense, 
"sports"  should  at  least  open  our  eyes  to  the  fact  that 
the  great  all-mother  can  still  show  her  original  wish  and 
intent. 

The  old  are  remarkably  and  uniquely  suggestible  in 
all  matters  that  pertain  to  the  suppression  or  augmenta- 

434 


SOME  CONCLUSIONS 

tion  of  life.  They  give  up  and  die  prematurely  as  victims 
of  a  tradition  that  it  is  time  for  them  to  do  so  and  they 
survive  no  less  remarkably  not  only  troubles  and  hard- 
ships but  even  surgical  operations  if  they  feel  that  they 
can  do  so.  We  need  not  be  faith-curers  but  must  be 
vitalists  and  believe  in  some  kind  of  elan  vital  or  creative 
evolution,  as  opposed  to  materialistic  or  mechanistic 
interpretations  of  life,  to  understand  the  true  psychology 
of  age.  It  is  the  nascent  period  of  a  new  and  unselfish 
involution  of  individuation  which  is  impossible  under 
the  domination  of  egoism.  The  new  self  now  striving  to 
be  born  is  freer  from  the  dominion  of  sense  and  of  the 
environment  and  has  an  autonomy  and  spontaneity  that 
is  reinforced  and  recharged  with  energy  from  the  primal 
springs  of  life,  and  man  may  well  look  to  this  as  one  of 
the  great  sources  of  hope  in  his  present  distress. 

With  the  sublimation  of  sex  in  the  Indian  summer  of 
the  senium,  thus,  comes  normally  a  higher  type  of  indi- 
viduation than  is  possible  before.  It  is  freer  from  pas- 
sion, sense,  selfish  interest,  clearer  and  farther  sighted, 
but  sees  the  identity  of  the  individual  and  the  race  with 
which  it  is  becoming  incorporate.  This  is  the  first  step 
toward  the  final  merging  into  mother  nature.  The  isola- 
tion from  the  outer  world  that  comes  with  dimming 
senses,  the  abatement  of  erotism,  and  the  reduced  voca- 
tional activities  are  compensated  for  by  a  new  noetic  or 
meditative  urge  that  comes  straight  from  the  primal 
sources  of  all  vital  energy  and  gives  a  new  and  deeper 
sense  of  these  and,  if  we  are  philosophical,  brings  a  new 
sympathy  with  vitalistic  theories  like  those  of  Lotze, 
Samuel  Butler,  Fechner,  and  Bergson,  to  say  nothing  of 
Schopenhauer,  Nietzsche,  Bernard  Shaw,  or  the  long 
line  of  evolutionists  before  Darwin,  which  goes  back  at 
least  to  Heraclitus.  This  final  rally  of  powers  just  when 
the  processes  of  bodily  decay  are  accelerated,  which  in 
times  past  sometimes  took  the  form  of  outbreaks  of 

435 


SENESCENCE 

prophecy,  admonition,  or  clairvoyance  as  to  the  meaning 
of  present  tendencies  for  the  far  future  of  the  race  and 
the  further  development  of  which  is  one  of  the  great 
present  hopes  of  a  world  in  which  the  processes  of  degen- 
eration are  now  being  greatly  accelerated,  can  be  nothing 
else  than  the  birth  throes  of  a  new  and  higher  stage  in 
the  evolution  of  man.  The  task  now  rests  upon  us  to 
intensify  and  prolong  this  stage  and  to  assure  it  to  an 
ever  larger  number.  We  already  see  that  we  here  escape 
from  many,  and  must  learn  to  escape  from  more,  of 
Metchnikoff  s  disharmonies  in  life.  Sometime  we  shall 
both  breed  and  educate  for  it,  make  it  the  ideal  and  goal 
for  the  young,  and  look  for  and  heed  its  deliverances  in 
the  favored  old.  Having  attained  it,  although  death  will 
seem  all  the  darker  by  contrast  with  its  regenerative 
light,  man  can  meet  it  with  less  regret  because  he  will  not 
feel  that  he  must  be  consoled  by  the  sequel  of  another 
life.  All  forms  of  belief  in  the  latter  are,  in  fact,  only 
surrogates  expressive  of  a  deeper  faith  and  these  sym- 
bols of  it  have  served  the  precious  purpose  of  keeping 
alive  in  his  breast  the  sense  that  his  life  here  was  an  un- 
finished fragmentary  thing.  The  true  Indian  summer  of 
life,  when  its  possibilities  are  developed,  is  all  that  they 
mean,  for  in  it  all  man's  belated  powers  will  ripen  and 
the  final  harvest  of  his  life  be  garnered. 

As  to  death,  normal  old  age  loves  it  no  better  than  do 
the  young.  Metchnikoff,  who  postulated  an  instinct  for 
death  as  the  reversal  of  the  love  for  life  and  which  he 
thought  should  supervene  at  the  end,  looked  for  it  in  him- 
self when  he  faced  imminent  and  certain  death  at  nearly 
three-score-and-ten ;  but  in  vain.  The  late  Secretary 
Lane,  facing  it,  was  praised  for  saying,  "I  accept,"  but 
the  psychologist  doubts  whether  anyone  ever  did  or 
could  welcome  death  understanding  it  to  be  extinction. 
The  suicide  may  murder  his  instinctive  will  to  live ;  the 
martyr  may  die  in  the  hope  of  a  better  world  beyond ;  the 
436 


SOME  CONCLUSIONS 

disappointed  lover  or  the  coward  to  life  may  turn  to  it  as 
the  lesser  of  two  evils.  A  man  may  surrender  his  life  as 
a  sacrifice  to  a  cause  he  deems  greater  than  self  but  it  is 
nevertheless  a  supreme  sacrifice.  A  soldier  accepts  the 
fatal  thrust  of  the  bayonet  and  a  criminal  mounts  the 
scaffold  or  sits  in  the  death  chair  because  he  cannot  help 
it.  For  how  can  life  accept  its  own  negation?  It  can 
never  hope  to  know  more  of  it  than  the  sun  can  know  of 
shadows,  which  are  where  it  is  not.  Thus  the  old  are  no 
wiser  and  no  more  willing  to  die  than  the  young,  if  in- 
deed they  are  as  much  so,  because  it  means  more  to  the 
latter  who  have  more  to  lose  by  it.  All  that  philosophy 
or  religion  can  do  is  to  direct  our  minds  from  its  full  and 
stark  envisagement. 

Growing  old  hygienically  is  like  walking  over  a  bridge 
that  becomes  ever  narrower  so  that  there  is  progres- 
sively less  range  between  the  licet  and  the  non  licet,  ex- 
cess and  defect.  The  bridge  slowly  tapers  to  a  log,  then 
a  tight-rope,  and  finally  to  a  thread.  But  we  must  go 
on  till  it  breaks  or  we  lose  balance.  Some  keep  a  level 
head  and  go  farther  than  others  but  all  will  go  down 
sooner  or  later. 

Several  of  my  respondents  say  that  they  never  on 
any  account  admit  to  themselves  that  they  are  old  and 
a  few  advise  us  to  avoid  by  every  possible  means  all 
thought  of  death,  using  every  method  of  diversion  from 
it.  One  thinks  that  to  dwell  upon  this  theme  is  posi- 
tively dangerous  because  the  thought  tends  to  bring  the 
reality.  I  believe,  on  the  contrary,  that  such  an  attitude 
is  not  only  cowardly  but  that  it  involves  self-deception 
because  the  memento  mori  is  in  fact  always  present,  if 
unconsciously,  in  the  old  and  to  face  the  Great  Enemy 
squarely  really  brings  easement  and  safeguards  us  from 
a  thanatophobia  that  may  have  far  more  dangerous  out- 
crops. To  have  once  deliberately  oriented  ourselves  to 
death  before  our  powers  fail  gives  us  a  new  poise  what- 

437 


SENESCENCE 

ever    attitude    toward    it    such    contemplation    leads 
us  to. 

My  own  conclusion  that  death  is  the  end  of  body  and 
soul  alike,  while  it  gives  me  a  profound  sense  of  satis- 
faction as  having  reached  and  accepted  the  final  goal 
of  all  present  culture  tendencies  which  all  serious  souls 
feel  impelled  toward  but  which  many  of  them  still  fight 
down  also  brings  me,  I  frankly  confess,  a  new  joy  in 
and  love  of  life  which  is  greatly  intensified  by  contrast 
with  the  blankness  beyond.  As  a  dark  background 
brings  out  a  fading  picture,  so  whatever  remains  of  life 
is  vastly  more  precious  and  more  delectable  day  by  day 
and  hour  by  hour  than'  it  could  possibly  be  if  at  the 
door  of  the  tomb  we  only  said  au  revoir.  The  very 
minutes  seem  longer  because  the  departure  into  eternity 
is  so  near.  Although  death  treats  our  psyche  just  as  it 
does  our  soma,  this  is  not  so  bad  on  our  present  views 
of  the  universe  and  insight  lifts  us  above  the  need  of 
consolation  and  even  gives  a  sense  of  victory  though 
Death  do  his  worst,  which  those  who  expect  another 
personal  life  never  attain.  And  so  I  am  grateful  to 
senescence  that  has  brought  me  at  last  into  the  larger 
light  of  a  new  day  which  the  young  can  never  see  and 
should  never  be  even  asked  to  see.  Thus  if  any  of  them 
should  ever  read  my  book  thus  far  I  would  dismiss  them 
here  and  in  the  following  chapter  address  myself  to  the 
aged  alone.  That  Jesus  faced,  and  consciously,  this  abso- 
lute death  at  the  close  of  his  career  seems  to  me  now  to 
have  been  made  clear  by  modern  critical  and  psycho- 
logical investigation.  But  it  was  a  sound  pedagogic 
instinct  that  led  the  evangelists  to  veil  this  extreme  ex- 
perience of  their  Master.8 

'  See  my  Jesus,  the  Christ,  in  the  Light  of  Psychology,  Chapters  VII 
and  XI. 


438 


CHAPTER  IX 

THE  PSYCHOLOGY  OF  DEATH 

The  attitude  of  infancy  and  youth  toward  death  as  recapitulating  that  of 
the  race — Suicide — The  death-wish — Necrophilism — The  Black  Death — 
Depopulation  by  the  next  war — The  evolutionary  nisus  and  death  as  its 
queller— Death  symbolism  as  pervasive  as  that  of  sex — Flirtations  of 
youthful  minds  with  the  thought  of  death — Schopenhauer's  view  of 
death — The  separation  of  ghosts  from  the  living  among  primitive  races — 
The  thanatology  of  the  Egyptians — The  journey  of  the  soul — Ancient 
cults  of  death  and  resurrection  in  the  religions  about  the  eastern  Medi- 
terranean, based  on  the  death  of  vegetation  in  the  fall  and  its  revival  in 
the  spring,  as  a  background  of  Pauline  Christianity — The  fading  belief 
in  immortality  and  Protestantism  which  now  at  funerals  speaks  only  of 
peace  and  rest — Osier's  five  hundred  death  beds — Influential,  plasmal, 
and  personal  immortality  and  their  reciprocal  relations — Moral  efficacy 
of  the  doctrine  of  future  rewards  and  punishments — Belief  in  a  future 
life  for  the  individual  being  transformed  into  a  belief  in  the  future  of  the 
race  on  earth  and  the  advent  of  the  superman— Does  man  want  personal 
immortality — Finot's  immortality  of  the  decomposing  body  and  its  reso- 
lution into  its  elements — The  Durkheim  school  and  the  Mana  doctrine — 
Schleiermacher — The  Schiller-James  view  of  the  brain  and  conscious- 
ness as  repressive  of  the  larger  life  of  the  great  Autos — The  views  of 
Plato  and  Kant — Have  God  and  nature  cheated  and  lied  to  us  if  the 
wish  to  survive  is  false — Noetic  and  mystic  immortality  by  partaking  of 
the  deathlessness  of  general  ideas — Views  of  Howison,  Royce,  and 
others — Is  there  a  true  euthanasia  or  thanatophilia— Diminution  of  the 
desire  for  personal  immortality  with  culture  and  age — Thanatopsis. 

FROM  infancy  to  old  age  the  conceptions  of  death 
undergo  characteristic  changes  in  the  individual  not  un- 
like those  through  which  the  race  has  passed.  The  death 
fear  or  thanatophobia  is,  thus,  a  striking  case  of  recapit- 
ulation. The  infant,  like  the  animal,  neither  knows  nor 
dreads  death.  The  death-feigning  instinct  in  animals  is 
only  cataplexy  and  the  horror  of  blood  that  some  her- 
bivora  feel  is  not  related  to  death.  From  Scott's  226 
cases  1  and  my  own  299  returns  to  questionnaires  *  it 

1  Am.  J.  Psychology,  vol.  8,  p.  67  et  seq. 

8  "A  Study  of  Fears,"  Am.  J.  Psy.,  vol.  B,  pp.  147-249;  see  also  Street, 
"A  Genetic  Study  of  Immortality,"  Ped.  Sem.,  vol.  6,  p.  167  et  seq. 

439 


SENESCENCE 

appears  that  the  first  impression  of  death  often  comes 
from  a  sensation  of  coldness  in  touching  the  corpse  of  a 
relative  and  the  reaction  is  a  nervous  start  at  the  con- 
trast with  the  warmth  that  the  contact  of  cuddling  and 
hugging  was  wont  to  bring.  The  child's  exquisite  tem- 
perature sense  feels  a  chill  where  it  formerly  felt  heat. 
Then  comes  the  immobility  of  face  and  body  where  it 
used  to  find  prompt  movements  of  response.  There  is  no 
answering  kiss,  pat,  or  smile.  In  this  respect  sleep  seems 
strange  but  its  brother,  death,  only  a  little  more  so. 
Often  the  half-opened  eyes  are  noticed  with  awe.  The 
silence  and  tearfulness  of  friends  are  also  impressive  to 
the  infant,  who  often  weeps  reflexly  or  sympathetically. 
Children  of  from  two  to  five  are  very  prone  to  fixate 
certain  accessories  of  death,  often  remembering  the 
corpse  but  nothing  else  of  a  dead  member  of  the  family. 
But  funerals  and  burials  are  far  more  often  and  more 
vividly  remembered.  Such  scenes  are  sometimes  the 
earliest  recollections  of  adults.  Scrappy  memory  pic- 
tures of  these  happenings  may  be  preserved  when  their 
meaning  and  their  mood  have  entirely  vanished  and  but 
for  the  testimony  of  others  they  would  remain  unable  to 
tell  what  it  was  all  about. 

Little  children  often  focus  on  some  minute  detail 
(thanatic  fetishism)  and  ever  after  remember,  for 
example,  the  bright  pretty  handles  or  the  silver  nails  of 
the  coffin,  the  plate,  the  cloth  binding,  their  own  or 
others'  articles  of  apparel,  the  shroud,  flowers,  and 
wreaths  on  or  near  the  coffin  or  thrown  into  the  grave, 
countless  stray  phrases  of  the  preacher,  the  music,  the 
incidents  of  the  ride  to  the  graveyard,  the  fear  lest  the 
bottom  of  the  coffin  should  drop  out  or  the  straps  with 
which  it  is  lowered  into  the  ground  should  slip  or  break, 
a  stone  in  the  first  handful  or  shovelful  of  earth  thrown 
.upon  the  coffin,  etc.  The  hearse  is  almost  always  prom- 
inent in  such  memories  and  children  often  want  to  ride 

440 


THE  PSYCHOLOGY  OF  DEATH 

in  one.  This,  of  course,  conforms  to  the  well-known  laws 
of  erotic  fetishism  by  which  the  single  item  in  a  con- 
stellation of  them  that  alone  can  find  room  in  the  narrow 
field  of  consciousness  is  over-determined  and  exagger- 
ated in  importance  because  the  affectivity  that  belongs 
to  items  that  are  repressed  and  cannot  get  into  conscious- 
ness is  transferred  to  those  that  can  do  so. 

Children  often  play  they  are  dead,  even  when  alone. 
They  stretch  out  in  bed,  fold  their  hands,  and  hold  their 
breath  as  long  as  they  can  to  see  how  it  feels  to  be  dead. 
A  few  in  fancy  feel  ill,  imagine  doctor  and  nurse,  go 
through  the  last  agony,  imagine  others  standing  about 
weeping  and  praising  them,  or  perhaps  picture  them- 
selves as  the  bystanders  and  see  the  imaginary  death  of  a 
friend  and  try  to  weep.  Real  grief  is  hard  for  them  and 
late  to  understand  and  they  often  think  tears  a  pretense. 
They  sometimes  pick  out  pretty  coffins  for  themselves 
or  their  chums  and  imagine  becoming  burial  frocks.  The 
odor  of  varnish  from  a  coffin  sometimes  has  an  incredible 
persistence  and  power  to  call  up  feelings  and  emotions. 
Many  children  fear  the  corpse  will  wake  and  sit  up — "he 
is  not  dead  but  sleepeth,"  etc.  Many  are  the  records  of 
how  by  calling,  touching,  pounding,  or  otherwise  doing 
either  forbidden  or  commendable  things  children  strive 
to  provoke  or  coax  their  dead  relatives  to  awake. 

Death  has  many  degrees  to  children.  The  buried  body 
is  deadest.  It  is  more  so  in  the  coffin  than  before  being 
placed  there.  A  very  sick  person  who  may  die  begins  to 
be  invested  with  the  same  awe.  Lying  in  bed  by  day,  the 
doctor,  the  silent  nurse,  the  smell  of  medicines,  often  sug- 
gest that  death  has  begun.  Toward  very  old  people 
children  feel  something  of  the  same  awe  because  they 
must  soon  die.  According  to  some  of  our  data  some 
young  children  are  incipient  necrophiles,  persistently 
trying  to  stroke,  handle,  or  even  kiss  and  hug  the  corpse. 
Scott's  curves  indicate  that  up  to  and  at  the  age  of  five 
441 


SENESCENCE 

death  is  more  likely  to  be  interesting  if  not  attractive, 
while  at  about  nine  its  real  horror  first  begins  to  be  felt. 
Some,  at  a  very  tender  age,  acquire  associations  that  per- 
sist for  years,  perhaps  through  life,  and  which  are  liable 
to  be  evoked  by  specific  instances.  This  is,  for  example, 
the  case  with  the  sight  and  smell  of  tuberoses,  a  black 
box  or  boat,  a  crepe  veil  or  bow  on  a  door,  hat,  or  gar- 
ment, tolling  of  bells  or  even  the  ringing  of  them,  etc. 
Certain  phrases  in  Scripture  and  in  some  morbid  cases 
all  allusions  to  death  are  liable  to  cause  hysterical  out- 
breaks. Some  thanatophobes  in  whom  these  infantile 
fetishistic  fears  persist  cannot  go  past  an  undertaker's 
show  window  but  go  far  around  to  avoid  it.  One  such 
young  man  felt  a  sudden  and  strong  aversion  toward  a 
young  lady  to  whom  he  was  attached  as  soon  as  he 
learned  that  she  was  employed  in  an  undertaker's  estab- 
lishment. These  aversions  often  spring  up  suddenly, 
perhaps  in  the  form  of  a  convulsive  sob,  tears,  or  inex- 
plicable depression,  although  they  are  usually  of  infantile 
origin.  Children's  funerals  and  interments  of  pets  are 
now  represented  by  a  small  literature. 

For  young  children  the  dead  are  simply  absent  and 
curious  questions  are  asked  as  to  where  they  have  gone, 
when  they  will  return,  why  the  child  cannot  go  with 
them.  The  infantile  mind  often  makes  strange  mixtures 
of  its  own  naive  constructions  with  adult  insight.  The 
distinction  between  psyche  and  soma,  of  which  death  is 
the  chief  teacher,  is  hard  for  the  realistic  minds  of  chil- 
dren. Told  that  Papa  or  Mama  rest  or  sleep  in  the 
ground,  they  ask  why  they  are  there,  where  it  is  so  cold 
and  dark,  why  they  do  not  wake,  what  they  eat,  who 
feeds  them,  impulsions  in  the  race  that  primitive  burial 
customs  often  elaborately  answered  by  preparing  bodies 
for  reanimation,  leaving  food  and  utensils  with  the 
corpse,  etc.  When  told  of  heaven  above,  children  have 
strange,  crass  fancies,  such  as  that  the  body  is  shot  up  to 
442 


THE  PSYCHOLOGY  OF  DEATH 

heaven,  the  grave  dug  open  by  angels,  the  body  passed 
down  through  the  earth  and  then  around  up,  etc.  It 
generally  gets  out  of  the  grave  and  goes  to  its  abode  by 
night. 

As  ideas  of  the  soul  begin  to  be  grasped  it  is  conceived 
as  a  tenuous  replica  of  the  body  hovering  about  some- 
where, sometimes  seen  though  rarely  felt.  It  may  even 
be  talked  to  or  fancied  as  present,  though  unseen.  Chil- 
dren's dreams  of  the  dead  are  often  vivid  and  rarely 
dreadful.  In  general  the  child  thinks  little  or  nothing 
but  good  of  the  dead  and  the  processes  of  idealization, 
aided  by  adults,  often  almost  reach  the  pitch  of  canoniza- 
tion so  that  later  the  memory  of  a  dead  parent  may  be- 
come a  power  in  the  entire  subsequent  life  of  sentiment 
as  if  all  the  instincts  of  ancestor  worship  were  focalized 
on  the  individual  parent.  Indeed,  we  find  some  adults 
who  maintain  quiet  sacred  hours  for  thought  of  or  ideal 
communion  with  their  departed  dear  ones  and  such 
yearnings,  of  course,  make  a  favorable  soil  for  the  ghost 
cult  of  spiritism.  This  component  of  our  very  complex 
attitude  toward  dead  friends  is  also  the  stratum  that 
crops  out  in  the  holy  communion  sacrament  of  the  ghost 
dances  of  our  American  Indians,  in  which  the  souls  of 
all  the  great  dead  of  their  tribe  are  supposed  to  come 
back  and  commune  with  their  living  descendants.  Just 
in  proportion  as  the  dead  are  loved  does  death  work  its 
charm  of  sublimation  and  idealization,  and  just  as  a  child 
of  either  sex  has  loved  the  parent  of  the  other  will  he  or 
she  idealize  a  chosen  mate  snatched  away  by  death. 
Thus,  too,  one  factor  in  the  belief  in  immortality  is  love 
that  must  conserve  its  object  though  deceased,  this  factor 
being  quite  distinct  from  the  transcendental  selfishness 
that  would  conserve  our  own  ego.  Young  children  often 
seem  rather  to  rejoice  in  than  to  fear  death.  The  ex- 
citement of  all  its  ceremonies  is  new  and  impressive. 
Some  even  express  a  wish,  after  a  funeral  is  over,  that 

443 


SENESCENCE 

someone  else  would  die.  In  their  funeral  games  they 
quarrel  as  to  who  shall  assume  the  central  role  of  the 
corpse,  which  they  feign  well.  One  abnormal  four-year- 
old  tried  to  kill  a  younger  mate  and  I  find  records  of  a 
number  of  pathological  children  who  have  actually  done 
so,  largely  in  order  to  enjoy  the  excitement  of  death, 
funeral,  and  burial.  A  sweet  young  girl  was  found 
dancing  on  the  fresh  grave  of  her  younger  sister,  chant- 
ing, "I  am  so  glad  she  is  dead  and  I  am  alive,"  suggesting 
not  the  ancient  days  of  famine  when  every  death  left 
more  food  for  the  survivors  so  much  as  jealousy  at  the 
diversion  of  parental  attention  and  care  to  the  younger 
child. 

Neurotic  children  often  play  with  unusual  abandon,  as 
if  to  compensate  for  the  depression,  when  they  have  just 
left  a  room  where  brothers  or  sisters  have  breathed  their 
last.  A  small  boy  who  lost  his  father  said,  "Now  I  will 
milk,  cut  wood,  bring  up  coal,"  etc.,  attempting  thus  to 
assume  the  father's  role,  perhaps  even  putting  on  some 
of  his  attire;  while  girls  whose  mothers  die  become  more 
tender  to  their  fathers  or  the  other  children,  feeling 
themselves  to  be  in  some  degree  the  surrogate  of  the 
mother.  Just  as  children  of  tender  age  far  more  often 
fear  the  death  of  others  than  they  do  their  own,  so  they 
vastly  more  often  wish  the  death  of  those  they  hate  than 
they  feel  any  suicidal  impulse.  Children's  propensity  to 
play  with  death-shudders  in  their  talk  and  thought  was 
well  illustrated  in  the  case  of  two  girls  of  perhaps  seven 
whom  I  overheard  while  they  were  watching  a  man  on  a 
very  high  roof.  One  said,  "Oh,  I  wish  he  would  fall 
right  down  backwards  and  kill  himself."  "And  they 
pick  him  up  all  bloody,"  giggled  the  other.  "His  bones 
all  broke,"  said  the  first.  "And  put  him  in  a  black  box  in 
the  grave,"  said  the  second.  "And  all  his  children  cry," 
said  number  one.  "And  starve  to  death,"  added  the 
other.  They  were  getting  more  excited  and  spoke  lower 

444 


THE  PSYCHOLOGY  OF  DEATH 

as  they  passed  out  of  my  hearing.  The  horror  and  also 
the  fascination  of  rooms  in  which  people  have  died  often 
shows  a  conflict  that  is  psychologically  the  same. 

If  death  is  thus  distorted  by  misconceptions  in  infancy 
it  looms  up  as  a  great  and  baffling  mystery  to  fledgling 
youth.  So  little  is  it  really  understood  by  them  that  it  is 
hard  to  utilize  the  fear  of  it  even  for  motivating  hygienic 
regimen.  To  tell  a  boy  or  girl  in  the  teens  that  it  has 
been  proven  that  by  conforming  to  certain  established 
laws  of  health  life  may  be  prolonged  on  an  average  of 
fifteen  years  seems  to  them  a  far  cry  and  it  has  little 
power  as  an  incentive  because  they  are  so  absorbed  in 
living  out  all  the  possibilities  of  the  present.  There  are 
certain  perils,  too,  in  using  the  death  fear  as  a  euthenic 
motive  for  the  young.  Yet  during  adolescence  the  death 
problem  often  becomes  a  veritable  muse  inspiring  end- 
less dreads,  reveries,  perhaps  obsessions  and  complexes 
of  the  most  manifold  kind,  especially  in  neurotics,  in 
whom  infantile  impulses  and  adult  insights  are  strangely 
mingled,  producing  weird  perversions  in  later  life.  All 
these  mazes  we  can  never  thread  without  a  knowledge 
of  the  impression  death  has  made  upon  the  impression- 
able soul  of  man  at  every  stage  of  life  and  perhaps  most 
of  all  in  the  adolescent  period,  when  youth  first  comes 
into  close  contact  with  the  death  thought. 

When  the  young  are  achieving  adulthood  at  the  most 
rapid  rate  they  are  often  overwhelmed  with  a  sense  of 
insufficiency,  inferiority,  or  incompleteness  against 
which  they  have  to  react  as  best  they  can.  Tolstoi  gave 
us  a  good  illustration  of  this  from  his  own  boyhood. 
His  tutor  flogged  him  and  he  reacted  as  the  only  way  in 
which  he  could  "get  even"  by  not  merely  the  thought  of 
suicide  but  the  vivid  imagination,  well  set  in  scene,  of 
himself  as  dead  and  his  father  dragging  the  horrified 
tutor  before  his  beautiful  corpse  and  accusing  him  of 
having  murdered  his  son,  while  the  friends  around 

445 


SENESCENCE 

bemoaned  him  as  so  brilliant  and  so  tragically  slain.  It 
seems  strange  that  at  that  period  of  life  when  both 
vitality  and  viability  are  greatest  and  the  will  to  live 
seems  to  have  its  maximal  momentum  the  death  thought 
is  so  prone  to  be  obsessive.  But  death  is  very  hard  to 
conceive  and  interpretations  of  what  it  really  means 
differ  with  every  age,  race,  individual,  and  perhaps 
almost  every  moment  of  life.  It  is  so  negative,  privative, 
and  human  nature,  like  physical  nature,  abhors  a  vacuum 
so  much  that  the  soul  balks  not  only  at  the  idea  of  an- 
nihilation but  at  every  thought  of  the  arrest  of  life. 
Recent  studies  of  children's  suicides  show  that  although 
they  begin  at  the  early  dawn  of  school  age  they  are  aug- 
mented by  all  repressions  of  their  natural  interests  and 
instincts.  Only  at  puberty  or  after,  when  the  life  of  the 
race  begins  to  dominate  that  of  the  individual,  do  chil- 
dren begin  to  comprehend  what  death  really  means ;  and 
even  then,  as  the  58  suicides  of  German  school  children 
per  year  from  1883  to  1905  show,  many,  if  not  most,  are 
sudden  and  impulsive  and  probably  the  majority,  at  least 
those  of  pubescent  girls,  are  largely  for  the  sake  of  the 
effect  their  death  will  have  upon  those  nearest  them. 
What  child  has  not  seriously  considered  suicide,  at  least 
in  reverie  ?  Several  partial  censuses  have  been  unable  to 
find  one.8 

As  to  the  death  wish,  this  may  be  often  felt  and  even 
expressed  impulsively  on  some  special  provocation  and 
then  the  realization  of  it  may  bring  not  only  horror  but 

'L.  Proal,  L' education  et  le  suicide  des  enfants,  Paris,  1907,  p.  204; 
G.  Budde,  Schulerselbstmorde,  Hanover,  1908,  p.  59;  E.  Neter,  Der  Selbst- 
mord  im  kindlichen  und  jugendlichen  Alter,  1910,  p.  28;  L.  Gurlitt,  Schiiler- 
selbstmorde, n.  d.,  p.  59;  Baer,  Der  Selbstmord  im  Kindesalter,  Liepzig, 
1901,  p.  85;  Eickhoff,  "Die  Zunahme  der  Schulerselbstmorde  an  den 
hoheren  Schulen,"  Zts.  f.  d.  evangel.  Religionsunter.  an  hdheren  Lehr- 
anstalten,  1909,  vol.  4;  Eulenberg,  "Schulerselbstmorde"  in  Der  Saemann, 
1909,  vol.  5,  p.  30;  Gebhard,  "Uber  die  Schulerselbstmorde,"  Monatss.  f. 
hohere  Schulen,  1909,  vols.  3  and  4,  p.  24;  Wehnert,  Schulerselbstmorde, 
Hamburg,  1908,  p.  81. 

446 


THE  PSYCHOLOGY  OF  DEATH 

in  neuropathic  children  may  set  up  a  prolonged  and  mor- 
bid corrective  process  to  strangle  it.  We  have  many 
cases  in  which  overtenderness  to  parents  or  relatives, 
which  had  become  so  insistent  as  to  be  troublesome,  was 
motivated  by  the  impulse  to  atone  for  a  vivid  death  wish 
that  took  form  in  a  moment  of  anger.  In  general  we 
have  only  a  life  wish  for  our  friends  and  reserve  the 
death  wish  for  enemies.  Even  in  the  most  highly  evolved 
emotional  lives  this  is  perhaps  only  a  question  of  pre- 
dominance, for  psychoanalysts  tell  us  that  never  was 
there  a  death,  even  of  a  lover,  that  did  not  bring  some 
small  modicum  of  joy  to  the  survivor,  swallowed  up  and 
overwhelmed  as  this  component  might  be  in  grief.  Were 
this  not  so,  comforters  and  consolers  would  have  no 
resources.  We  strive  to  think  that  our  dear  ones  are 
happier,  comforting  ourselves  with  memories,  and 
ascribe  to  the  dead  superior  powers  of  transcendental 
enjoyment;  while,  conversely,  no  savage  ever  killed  the 
bitterest  foe  of  his  tribe  without  elements  of  pity  or  per- 
haps phrases  to  atone  for  the  soul  of  the  victim  or  to  his 
friends  by  saying  propitiatory  words  or  performing 
placatory  rites.  Even  hell  and  devils  never  kill  the  soul 
and  there  are  spots  and  spells  of  remission  of  torment 
so  that  surcease  and  nepenthe  are  not  unknown,  even  in 
the  inferno. 

The  death  thought  in  some  of  our  data  seems  to  be 
spontaneous,  that  is,  it  may  break  out  obsessively,  not 
only  on  the  slightest  occasion  but  without  any  ascertain- 
able  cause.  Some  young  people  have  spells  of  crying 
with  wild  abandon  at  the  thought  that  they  must  die, 
which  sometimes  seems  to  sound  out  to  them  as  if  from 
the  welkin.  It  is  worst  nights.  It  seems  so  unspeakably 
dreadful  that  they  cannot  steady  their  voice.  The 
thought  in  the  infant  prayer,  "If  I  should  die  before  I 
wake,"  etc.,  made  one  child  more  or  less  neurotic  for 
years  with  horror  of  hell  and  judgment  and  she  was  wont 

447 


SENESCENCE 

to  fancy  herself  found  dead  in  the  morning  and  used  to 
pose  for  it  to  look  her  best.  This,  too,  plays  its  role  in 
revival  hysteria.  Some  who  have  been  very  near  death 
by  drowning  or  other  accident  magnify  this  experience 
in  memory  until  it  may  come  to  haunt  them.  Indeed,  it 
seems  characteristic  of  adolescence  that  although  it  may 
occur  at  later  stages  of  life,  in  some  quiet  hour,  perhaps 
when  alone  on  the  shore  or  in  the  forest  or  in  a  wakeful 
moment  at  night,  the  thought,  "I  must  die,"  seems  to 
spring  and  fasten  upon  the  soul  like  a  beast  of  prey.  It 
flashes  out  with  great  and  absorbing  vividness.  Occa- 
sionally a  voice  seems  to  pronounce  the  sentence.  In  a 
few  cases  it  is  so  intense  that  a  child  fancies  itself  in  the 
act  of  dying  and  springs  up  in  terror.  Probably  all  mor- 
bid fears  of  death  are  regressive  or  reversionary  and 
have  childish  features.  One  clergyman  was  so  haunted 
by  it  that  he  could  not  conduct  funerals  and  only  after 
years  was  he  able  to  find  self-control  in  the  conviction 
that  he  might  live  on  till  Christ's  second  coming.4 

4  Mersey  "La  Tanatophilie  dans  la  famille  des  Hapsbourg,"  Rev.  d. 
Psychiatr.  Nr.  12,  1912,  p.  493,  describes  the  strange  case  of  love  of  death 
in  the  daughter  of  Ferdinand  and  Isabella  and  also  Charles  V.  The 
former,  after  the  death  of  her  husband,  Philip  the  Beautiful,  whom  she 
loved  with  a  consuming  jealousy,  had  his  body  embalmed  and  only  with 
great  difficulty  could  she  leave  the  coffin  where  it  lay.  Sometimes  she  had 
it  open  for  a  time  to  kiss  the  bare  corpse  and  did  so  with  the  greatest 
passion.  This  state  had  periods  of  remission  and  exacerbation.  The 
history  of  Charles,  too,  can  be  paralleled  in  many  modern  instances,  while 
dreams  show  us  still  more  clearly  how  necrophilic  man  can  be. 

Witry  says  that  from  his  own  practice  he  believes  thanatophobiacs  are 
almost  always  from  the  professional  or  upper  middle  classes,  those  from 
the  lower  classes  meeting  death  with  more  stoicism  than  those  of  the 
upper.  Catholics,  he  says,  have  little  fear  of  death.  Thanatophobes  are 
usually  neuropaths  of  degenerate  heredity.  One  of  his  cases,  a  girl  of  18, 
was  suddenly  seized  by  a  violent  fear  that  she  was  to  die  within  an  hour. 
She  was  put  to  sleep  by  suggestion  and  woke  up  normal.  A  woman  teacher 
of  49  had  three  acute  attacks,  cured  by  suggestion.  A  middle-aged 
physician,  after  being  drunk,  had  acute  fear  of  death  and  Hell,  which 
yielded  to  medical  treatment.  Old  priests,  we  are  told,  are  especially  sub- 
ject to  it  if  neuropathic  or  " scrupuleux ."  Some  feel  it  acutely  when,  after 
fighting  a  long  reluctance  to  do  so,  they  have  compelled  themselves  to 
make  a  will. 

448 


THE  PSYCHOLOGY  OF  DEATH 

In  my  teens  in  the  country  I  often,  and  with  a  willing- 
ness that  was  hard  for  myself  or  my  parents  to  under- 
stand, took  my  turn  in  watching  with  the  sick  and  dying 
neighbors  or  "setting  up"  with  corpses.  On  two  occa- 
sions, once  entirely  alone,  I  performed  as  best  I  could 
the  office  of  "laying  out"  the  body  of  an  old  neighbor 
who  died  in  the  middle  of  the  night.  Other  young  people 
of  my  acquaintance  were  generally  very  ready  to  per- 
form such  offices  although  they  involved  great  nervous 
tension,  and  in  general  a  companion  watcher  was  sought 
or  provided.  Another  personal  experience  illustrates 
the  persistence  of  juvenile  attitudes  toward  death  in 
mature  life.  As  a  boy  in  the  country  I  had  to  pass,  in 
going  to  and  coming  from  the  village,  a  lonely  country 
church  yard,  by  which  I  used  to  run  and  in  which  many 
of  my  relatives  for  generations  were  buried.  Only  a  few 
years  ago  I  yielded,  during  a  sojourn  at  the  village  inn, 

Ferrari,  "La  pour  de  la  morte,"  Rev.  Scient.,  1896,  vol.  5,  p.  59,  describes 
several  cases  of  tolerably  healthy  people  who  have  had  sudden  premoni- 
tions of  death,  with  acute  fear,  and  who  have  shortly  thereafter  died,  some 
of  them  from  no  ascertainable  cause.  Hence  he  raises  the  question 
whether  an  obsession  of  death  can  be  so  strong  as  to  cause  it. 

Fiessinger  gives  a  case,  which  he  thinks  directly  due  to  the  symptoms  of 
angina  pectoris,  and  discusses  whether  patients  should  be  told  their  disease 
and  its  gravity,  in  view  of  this  possible  phobia. 

Ferrero,  "La  crainte  de  la  morte,"  Rev.  Scient.,  1895,  vol.  3,  p.  361,  thinks 
the  natural  man  has  little  fear  or  thought  of  death  and  its  representations 
in  art  and  religion  are  not  painful,  on  account  of  the  sustaining  influences 
of  our  organic  sensations.  Still,  the  thought  of  death  does  have  much 
influence  upon  our  ideas,  and  to  some  extent  our  sentiments.  The  mathe- 
matical chances  of  death  plays  a  small  role  in  affecting  the  choice  of  pro- 
fessions. It  is  only  the  prospect  of  impending  death  that  shocks.  Chronic 
invalids  have  little  fear  but  only  hope  for  life,  for  example,  consumptives, 
while  to  some,  for  example,  Indian  widows,  lovers,  it  is  attractive.  Hence 
he  thinks  it  normally  indifferent  and  sometimes  agreeable  but  becomes  an 
object  of  fear  only  by  association. 

Levy,  "Die  agoraphobic,"  Wien.  allg.  medizin.  Zeitung,  1911,  nr.  10,  gives 
a  case  of  an  agoraphobia  that  was  rooted  in  a  very  distinct  dread  of 
death  by  a  special  disease.  A  Dubois  psychotherapeutic  conversation, 
which  proved  the  fallacy  of  its  grounds  and  to  which  the  patient  attended, 
although  with  great  effort,  did  not  quiet  but  only  increased  excitement. 
Excitement  and  exhaustion  were  the  chief  symptoms  and  the  case  yielded 
only  to  isolation  and  rest. 

449 


SENESCENCE 

to  the  whim  of  revisiting  this  graveyard  by  moonlight 
one  midnight.  I  forced  myself  to  climb  over  the  high 
black  entrance  gate,  for  all  was  surrounded  by  a  wall  of 
dark-colored  stone  and  by  a  row  of  pine  trees.  I  walked 
deliberately  through  the  graveyard  and  back,  striking  a 
match  on  my  grandfather's  tomb  to  light  a  cigar  as  a  cul- 
mination of  a  kind  of  bravado  that  left  nothing  that  an 
observer  could  detect  as  indicating  anything  but  perfect 
poise  and  control.  I  did  not  even  quite  shudder  when,  as 
I  stood  amidst  the  grave  stones,  a  dark  cloud  obscured 
the  moon,  and  after  walking  back  and  forth  there  for  a 
time  I  leisurely  clambered  out  and  went  back.  But  the 
strange  thing  about  it  all  was  a  nervous  tension,  the  flit- 
ting fears  and  fancies  that  had  to  be  kept  under  and  that 
constantly  impelled  me  to  turn  and  run.  On  returning  I 
found  myself  in  a  state  of  high  nervous  excitement  and 
realized  that  almost  any  sudden  unexpected  shock  would 
have  caused  me,  as  the  sudden  obscurity  of  the  moon 
nearly  did,  to  yield  to  precipitate  flight. 

Thus,  we  see  in  the  young  buds  of  about  all  of  the  many 
and  diverse  attitudes  the  race  has  assumed  toward  death. 
Most  of  them  are  polymorphic  and  perverse,  some  merely 
organic  residua  of  long  phyletic  influences.  Thus,  as  in 
sex,  the  components  of  the  death  attitudes  are  early  pres- 
ent but  are  not  organized  into  unity  until  puberty,  when 
the  racial  experiences  in  both  fields  come  to  be  more  or 
less  unified.  It  would  seem  that  death  has  no  business 
with  young  people  or  they  with  it  and  that  it  is  as  absurd 
for  them  to  occupy  themselves  with  it  at  this  age  as  it 
would  be  for  them  to  worry  about  posterity  before  the 
dawn  of  adolescence.  Since  the  life  and  growth  of  the 
psyche  and  soma  are  now  at  their  flood-tide,  it  would 
seem  that  every  intimation  of  death  would  be  not  only 
foreign  to  the  very  nature  of  young  people  but  would 
be  arrestive  of  the  course  of  nature  and  should  be  veiled 
in  reticence,  like  sex,  before  its  time,  with  only  provi- 
450 


THE  PSYCHOLOGY  OF  DEATH 

sional  answers  to  the  genuine  questions  about  it.  Indeed, 
the  above  data  seem  to  show  that  the  genetic  impulse 
itself  seems  to  shield  the  child  by  diverting  it  from  the 
central  fact  of  death  to  countless  irrelevancies,  triviali- 
ties, and  accessories.  Just  as  the  instinct  of  the  race  has 
blindly  striven  to  avoid  sex  precocity,  if  not  to  delay 
puberty,  and  more  consciously  and  purposively  to  enforce 
a  period  of  repression  between  the  age  of  pubescence  and 
that  of  nubility,  so  myth,  primitive  religion,  and  espe- 
cially Christianity,  have  provided  ways  of  mitigating, 
even  for  adults  but  more  especially  for  the  young,  the 
nameless  horror  of  direct  envisagement  of  the  fact  that 
all  must  die  and  cease  to  be,  body  and  soul,  or,  like  the 
Nirvana  cult,  to  make  this  conviction  more  tolerable. 
Indeed,  it  is  probably  a  normal  instinct  of  compensa- 
tion that  often  leads  young  people  to  visit  morgues  and 
perhaps  dissecting  rooms,  to  develop  a  certain  immunity 
from  such  obsessive  tendencies  as  the  above.5  Great 
earthquakes,  disastrous  floods,  and,  above  all,  war  and 
pestilence  compel  us  to  face  the  death  thought  at  close 
quarters  for  a  season  and  there  are  always  those  who 
revel  in  describing  it  in  its  most  gruesome  details, 
although  there  is  a  tacit  consensus  of  the  press  to  sup- 


8  A  striking  illustration  of  this  comes  to  me,  as  I  write,  in  a  popular 
song  with  lugubrious  music  that  many  of  my  young  friends  persist  in 
singing  and  humming  as  if  haunted  by  it. 

SOME  SWEET  DAY 

Did  you  ever  think  as  the  hearse  rolled  by 
That  some  day  or  other  you  must  die? 

In  an  old  churchyard,  in  a  tiny  lot, 

Your  bones  will  wither  and  then  they'll  rot. 

The  worms'll  crawl  up,  the  worms'll  crawl  in, 
They'll  crawl  all  over  your  mouth  and  chin. 

They'll  bring  their  friends,  and  their  friends'  friends,  too ; 
You'll  look  like  hell  when  they're  through  with  you. 

451 


SENESCENCE 

press  the  most  horrible  of  them.  Soldiers  have  to  be 
hardened  to  inflict  it  in  its  most  direct  and  personal  way, 
as,  for  example,  by  the  bayonet,  as  well  as  to  keep  cool 
when  they  are  first  under  fire  and  to  carry  on  and  not 
turn  and  flee  in  panic  when  their  comrades  are  torn  to 
pieces  about  them.  Such  experiences,  while  they  often 
mature  the  unripe  and  give  a  new  poise  to  character,  also 
tend  to  make  human  life  seem  cheaper,  so  that  it  is  not 
strange  that  wars  are  followed  by  crime  waves  and 
especially  by  marked  increase  in  assaults.  For  disguise 
it  as  we  may,  war  is  at  root  licensed  murder  and  its 
heroes  are  they  who  have  killed  the  most  of  those  who 
have  been  declared  enemies.  Indeed,  it  is  self-evident 
that  the  normal  man  who  can  deliberately  stake  his  life 
in  a  fight  in  which  he  knows  that  he  must  either  kill  or  be 
killed  does  so  because  he  realizes  that  there  is  something 
that  he  values  more  than  he  does  his  life,  and  to  have  had 
one  such  experience  marks  an  epoch  of  the  utmost  moral 
import.  Perhaps  it  is  not  too  much  to  say  that  only  those 
who  have  made  this  supreme  sacrifice  in  spirit  are  fin- 
ished and  complete  men. 

When  death  holds  high  carnival  and  whole  populations 
are  depleted,  long  periods  of  readjustment  follow  and 
human  nature  breaks  out  in  strange  ways.  Defoe's  very 
realistic  though  fictive  story  of  the  Great  Plague  showed 
this.  J.  W.  Thompson  8  says  that  the  Black  Death,  A.D. 
1348-1349,  swept  away  at  least  one-third  of  the  popula- 
tion of  Europe  and  brought  in  its  train  economic  chaos, 
social  unrest,  profiteering,  lack  of  production,  phrenetic 
gayety,  dissipation,  wanton  spending,  recklessness,  greed, 
debauchery,  avarice,  hysteria,  and  decay  of  morals.  The 
nerves  of  the  people  were  shattered.  Goods  were  with- 
out owners  but  everything  movable  was  immediately 
appropriated  by  survivors.  Prices  first  shrank  very  low 

'  Am.  J.  Sociology,  March,  1921. 

452 


THE  PSYCHOLOGY  OF  DEATH 

and  then  rose  to  preposterous  heights.  The  Plague  was 
like  an  invasion  and  there  were  great  migrations  for 
years.  There  was  administrative  inefficiency  for  the 
trained  class  was  cut  down.  The  machinery  of  government 
almost  stopped  and  there  were  thousands  of  ignorant  and 
incompetent  men  in  important  public  places.  The  church 
was  no  better  off  and  it  had  to  press  unfit  raw  recruits 
into  its  service.  Flagellants  exhibited  a  mixture  of 
religion  and  sex  rivaling  the  psychology  of  the  crusades. 
Thought  went  off  on  all  kinds  of  tangents.  There  were 
charlatans,  mind-readers,  sorcerers,  witch  doctors,  soap- 
box preachers,  and  the  Pied  Piper  very  likely  really  did 
lead  the  excited  children  with  his  mad  antics  and  wierd 
music  to  wander  off  with  him  until,  as  in  the  children's 
crusade,  they  were  lost.  Thompson  points  out  that 
although  there  are  many  points  of  difference,  there  are 
more  very  significant  analogues  between  the  after-effects 
of  this  plague  and  those  of  the  World  War.  A  Danish 
historian  estimates  that  in  the  latter  ten  million  soldiers 
died  in  battle  or  of  wounds,  three  million  were  per- 
manently disabled,  and  probably  some  thirty  million 
more  people  would  have  been  alive  to-day  but  for  it. 
Such  a  decimation  of  Europe  has  certainly  brought 
social,  economic,  and  psychological  changes  that  it  would 
take  us  long  to  evaluate. 

Meanwhile,  we  cannot  entirely  escape  the  looming 
prospect  of  a  far  more  disastrous  war  that  may  yet  come. 
W.  Irwin  7  has  cleverly  hit  off  some  of  the  possibilities  of 
the  awful  holocaust  that  death  would  probably  celebrate 
if  such  a  conflict  ever  came  to  pass.  Instead  of  liquid 
flame  we  have  now  Lewisite  gas,  which  is  invisible,  sinks, 
and  would  search  out  every  dugout  and  cellar,  while  it 
also  attacks  the  skin  and  almost  always  kills,  having  a 
spread  fifty-five  times  greater  than  that  of  any  other 

1  The  Next  War,  New  York,  1921. 

453 


SENESCENCE 

poison  gas.  He  quotes  an  expert  as  saying  that  a  dozen 
Lewisite  air-bombs  of  the  greatest  size  and  under  favor- 
able atmospheric  conditions  would  practically  eliminate 
the  population  of  Berlin  and  we  even  have  hints  of  a  gas 
beyond  this.  Gas  will  very  likely  be  the  chief  weapon  of 
the  future  war.  Moreover,  the  bombing  airplane  has  a 
range,  of  course,  far  beyond  any  gun.  Bombs  grew  in 
size  during  the  war  from  that  of  a  grapefruit  to  eight 
feet  in  length,  with  half  a  ton  of  explosives  and  gas- 
generating  chemicals,  costing  some  $3,000  each  and  the 
planes  carrying  these  will  be  directed  by  wireless,  so  that 
the  airplane  is  thus  the  supergun.  Hitherto  warfare  has 
been  directed  against  soldiers,  but  in  the  future  it  will  be 
against  whole  peoples  and  this  generation  may  see  a 
great  metropolis  suddenly  made  into  a  necropolis.  For- 
mal declaration  of  war,  too,  will  become  as  obsolete  as 
a  Fauntleroy  courtesy.  Killing  will  be  not  by  hand  but 
by  machinery ;  not  in  retail  but  by  wholesale.  War  will 
be  not  between  individual  nations  or  small  groups  of 
them  but  will  embrace  the  entire  world,  even  the  East,  so 
that  there  will  be  no  neutrals.  Tanks  will  be  used  as 
super-dreadnoughts  and  poison  gases  will  perhaps  para- 
lyze the  soil  for  years,  as  indeed  they  have  done  to  some 
extent  in  eastern  France.  Thus  if  war  in  the  future 
becomes  one  hundred  per  cent  efficient  in  the  use  of  the 
resources  at  present  at  its  command  and  those  that  it  is 
only  the  part  of  common  sense  to  anticipate,  the  depop- 
ulation caused  will  be  incalculable  and  the  world  may 
experience  again  all  the  phenomena  that  Europe  did 
after  the  Black  Death,  and  perhaps  more. 

There  is  an  evolution  larger  than  Darwinism  and  far 
older  than  science  in  which  all  who  think  have  every- 
where and  always  believed.  The  common  phenomena  of 
growth  suggest  it  to  every  mind.  It  is  almost  of  the 
nature  of  thought  to  seek  origins  and  to  trace  things 
to  their  simple  beginnings.  Indeed,  the  most  perfect 

454 


THE  PSYCHOLOGY  OF  DEATH 

knowledge  of  anything  is  the  description  of  the  processes 
of  its  development.  Special  creation  myths,  cosmogon- 
ies, and  religious  theories  of  the  world  and  man,  philos- 
ophies and  histories,  are  all  products  of  the  same  deep 
instinct  to  know  the  cosmos  as  a  whole  and  also  its  parts 
genetically.  And  it  is  a  deep  and  dominant  noetic  instinct 
that  has  given  us  the  far  more  highly  evolved  evolution- 
ism that  now  prevails  in  every  department  of  human 
knowledge.  Thus,  even  those  who  oppose  its  recent 
applications  to  man  are  only  halting  at  the  last  step  in  a 
path  that  all  have  traveled  far  and  long. 

The  will-to-live,  the  struggle  for  survival,  the  elan 
vital,  libido,  etc.,  are  only  new  names  given  to  the  im- 
pelling forces  of  the  growth-urge  in  its  higher  stages; 
but  these  have  become  types  and  symbols,  if  a  bit 
anthropomorphic,  of  all  the  more  basal  and  earlier 
processes  by  which  the  homogeneous  tends  to  differen- 
tiate itself.  Thus  we  may  conceive  the  universe  as  being 
from  the  first  in  labor  to  produce  life.  Everything  that 
lives  hungers  to  do  so  more  intensely  and  as  for  man 
"  'tis  life  of  which  our  nerves  are  scant,  more  life  and 
fuller — that  we  want."  Macrobiotism  was  the  term  used 
to  designate  the  lust  to  maximize  our  lives,  to  make  them 
vivid  and  long,  and  to  exhaust  all  the  possibilities  of 
human  experience;  but,  more  especially,  to  enlarge  the 
pleasure  field  and  narrow  that  of  pain,  which  is  arrestive. 
We  want  to  enjoy  everything  of  which  man's  estate  is 
capable  and  we  want  it  here  and  now.  In  youth,  par- 
ticularly, we  long  for  wealth,  knowledge,  power,  strength, 
fame,  health,  and  beauty  because  these  make  us  glow 
and  tingle  with  life.  The  things  to  which  we  ascribe 
worth  and  value  are  those  that  enhance  the  joy  of  living. 
All  of  them  are  only  forms  of  the  affirmation  of  the  will- 
to-live  or  fulfillments  of  the  wish  to  be  well,  happy,  and 
of  consequence  to  ourselves  and  others.  Progress,  re- 
form, enlightenment,  enterprise,  efficiency,  are  terms 

455 


SENESCENCE 

used  as  we  climb  the  heights  of  the  excelsior  mount  of 
promise.  "More  life  and  fuller" — we  want  nothing  else 
here  or  hereafter. 

But  death,  ghastly,  inevitable  death,  is  our  goal.  It  is 
the  great  and  universal  negation  of  life  and  coregent 
with  it  of  the  world.  All  that  lives  must  die.  How  the 
death-thought  sometimes  springs  like  a  beast  of  prey 
from  its  ambush  upon  youth  when  life  is  most  intense 
and  how  it  blights,  sears,  stings,  and  wounds  but  never- 
theless charms  and  fascinates!  Here  is  the  first  of  all 
dualisms,  the  greatest  of  all  contrasts,  and  the  most  uni- 
versal of  all  conflicts.  Death  is  dissolution,  defeat,  re- 
treat, abnegation,  the  processes  of  which  begin  with  life 
itself  and  even  the  old  who  still  "carry  on"  know  that 
they  must  soon  become  carrion  and  that  no  funeral  pomp 
or  tomb  can  do  more  than  camouflage  putridity  in  order 
to  divert  us  from  the  horrid  thought  to  escape  which  the 
very  concept  of  the  soul  itself  was  entified  and  immor- 
talized, just  as  all  the  devices  of  modesty  and  all  the 
precepts  of  sexual  morality  were  evolved  to  divert  us 
from  the  envisagement  of  bare  sex  organs  and  acts. 
Death  is  not  only  the  king  of  terrors  but  to  the  genetic 
psychologist  every  fear  is  at  bottom  the  fear  of  death, 
for  all  the  scores  of  phobias  that  prey  upon  man  are  of 
things  and  of  experiences  that  abate  life.  Death  is  thus 
a  matter  of  infinite  degrees  from  the  loss  of  a  penny  or  a 
sore  tooth  to  that  of  a  friend  or  to  our  own  extinction. 
Freudians  rightly  ascribe  many  ailments  of  mind  and 
body  to  abnormalities  and  disharmonies  of  sex  love, 
which  presides  over  the  life  of  the  race.  But  this  now 
needs  to  be  supplemented  by  quite  another  and  probably 
no  less  important  psychoanalysis  that  will  show,  when  it 
is  explored,  that  the  fear  of  death  or  of  life-abatement 
for  the  individual  is  no  whit  less  pervasive  an4  dominant 
than  are  love  and  hunger,  which  are  so  often  said  to  rule 
the  world.  Only  one  psychologist  has,  although  but  very 
456 


THE  PSYCHOLOGY  OF  DEATH 

partially,  recognized  this  and  his  findings  are  resumed 
as  follows. 

W.  Stekel  says  that  not  only  has  death  played  a  great 
role  in  poetry,  folklore,  myth,  religion,  and  art,  but  it  is 
a  more  or  less  disguised  theme  of  many  dreams,  espe- 
cially those  of  neurotics.8  He  urges  that  not  only  the 
death  fear  but  the  death  wish,  masked  in  very  diverse 
symbolic  forms,  is  extremely  common  in  the  dreams  of 
psychopaths.  He  ascribes  a  thanatic  meaning  to  very 
many  factors  that  analytic  Freudians  have  usually  inter- 
preted as  having  only  a  sexual  significance  and  holds 
that  the  same  mechanisms  apply  to  both.  He  would  have 
all  psychoanalysts  look  for  the  death  thought,  which  he 
believes  hardly  less  common  and  quite  as  disguised  and 
illusive  as  sex,  not  only  in  dreams  but  in  the  illusions  of 
the  insane.  To  our  bestial  unconscious  self,  which  in 
these  experiences  escapes  the  censor,  the  ego  is  supreme 
and  finds  its  ultimate  goal  only  in  the  destruction  of 
others ;  and  if  it  does  not  kill  those  in  our  way,  it  pictures 
their  death  or  finds  some  way  for  their  removal.  This, 
indeed,  is  involved  in  the  realization  of  very  many  of  our 
secret  hopes.  A  woman  loves  a  man  whom  she  cannot 
see  and  so  she  dreams  that  her  child  dies,  for  she  knows 
that  he  would  attend  the  funeral  and  there  see  and  also 
pity  her.  A  man  has  more  or  less  unconsciously  ceased  to 
love  his  wife  but  suppresses  the  realization  of  the  fact 
from  his  waking  consciousness  and  so  dreams  of  her  as 
talking  with  his  grandfather,  long  since  dead.  Another 
man  in  a  like  state  of  mind  dreamed  that  his  wife  sud- 
denly and  mysteriously  vanished. 

The  most  common  death  symbols  are  going  away,  a 
journey,  wandering;  or  there  may  be  still  more  remote 
focalization  of  the  death  wish  upon  sandals,  feet,  foot- 
steps, a  path,  going  home,  passing  through  a  narrow 

*  Die  Sprache  des  Traumes,  1911,  pp.  214-284. 

457 


SENESCENCE 

street  or  door,  growing  small;  or  even  vehicles  of  any 
sort  or  anything  suggestive  of  transportation  may  sig- 
nify death.  Instead  of  a  skeleton  or  skull  the  dream  may 
conceive  death  under  the  form  of  a  rider,  huntsman  upon 
a  white  or  black  horse,  a  deaf  mute — suggestive  of  the 
silence  of  the  grave — or  blindness,  symbolic  of  its  dark- 
ness ;  a  doctor,  perhaps  Doctor  White  or  Doctor  Black,  a 
tailor  cutting  a  thread,  a  messenger,  raven,  black  cat  or 
dog,  thirteen,  a  clergyman,  priest,  weeping  willow,  a 
woodman  felling  a  tree,  a  mower  or  reaper,  a  small  house 
or  room,  fire  or  flood. 

Death  in  our  unconscious  is  a  wondrous  masquerader 
and  it  very  often  appears  as  sleep.  The  grave  is  a  bed ; 
the  churchyard,  a  dormitory;  catacombs,  berths.  Water 
symbolism,  too,  is  very  common,  for  example,  the  cross- 
ing of  a  dark  river  to  the  other  shore,  a  boat,  a  narrow 
strait,  a  stormy  or  a  deep  dark  sea  across  which  we  pass 
to  an  island  or  a  new  continent,  the  abode  of  the  dead; 
and  we  speak  of  going  out  with  the  ebb  of  the  tide,  ship- 
wreck, stranding,  etc.  Death  may  also  appear  as  a  fire 
that  consumes  or  purifies.  Processions  and  even  crowds 
may  suggest  burial  or  funerals;  and  so  sometimes  do 
festivals  or  even  weddings.  A  chest  or  trunk  may  mean 
a  coffin,  and  graduation  or  even  promotion  in  school  may 
stand  for  "passing  out."  Sometimes  the  basis  of  the 
primitive  impulse  to  kill,  which  made  man  a  wolf  to  his 
fellow-man,  may  crop  out  in  dreams  or  insanity  without 
either  camouflage  or  repression  and  the  sleeper  tries 
poison,  pistol,  dagger,  knife,  etc.  Perhaps  man  still  has 
in  his  unconscious,  deep  down  at  the  bottom  of  his  soul, 
the  sin  of  father-murder,  as  some  now  tell  us,  and  reac- 
tion to  this  brings  remorse  and  later  a  sense  of  atonement 
from  the  original  sin  and  guilt  for  which  man  has  for 
ages  sought  remission  and  fancied  resurrection.  At  any 
rate,  many  psychoneurotic  souls  seek  to  compensate  for 
instinctive  death  wishes  by  excessive  tenderness  to 

458 


THE  PSYCHOLOGY  OF  DEATH 

friends  and  relatives,  whose  removal,  they  realize  with 
horror,  they  have  sometimes  caught  themselves  desiring. 
Nietzsche  says  that  we  should  never  pity  the  old  who  are 
about  to  die ;  but  under  the  law  of  bipolarity  the  worship 
and  even  the  tyranny  of  the  dead  hand,  or  mortmain,  has 
sometimes  developed  to  such  a  degree  that  the  dead  have 
been  or  should  be  made  to  die  again  to  free  us  from  their 
control. 

If  these  views  are  at  all  correct,  our  larger,  older  un- 
conscious soul  is  still  full  of  reverberations  of  suffering, 
inflicting,  and  observing  death.  Man  became  man  when 
he  knew  that  he  must  die,  and  to  defer  or  escape  death 
has  been  the  basal  motivation  of  all  of  his  culture.  That 
he  might  not  starve  he  accumulated  property,  the  prim- 
itive form  of  which,  as  Leternau  has  shown,  was  food. 
To  escape  death  by  the  rigors  of  climate  he  devised 
clothing  and  shelter.  To  avoid  it  by  wild  beasts  and 
human  enemies  he  devised  weapons  and  organized  the 
hunt  and  warfare.  To  keep  himself  alive  when  attacked 
by  disease,  the  medicine  man  and  later  the  healing  art 
were  evolved.  Now  he  insures  not  only  against  death 
but  against  the  partial  death  involved  in  the  loss  of  limbs, 
accident,  and  illness;  he  safeguards  his  person  and  his 
goods  by  codes  and  law  courts ;  and  regulates  diet,  regi- 
men, mores,  and  social  hygiene  with  a  view  to  more  and 
fuller  life.  All  these  institutions  are  impelled  by  the 
instinct  of  self-preservation,  reinforced  as  it  now  is  in 
man  by  the  knowledge  of  his  mortality.  Man  may  thus 
be  redefined  as  the  death-shunner.  He  does  not  and  can- 
not begin  to  realize  how  much  he  fears  death  and  dreads 
it  now  and  always  has.  The  reason  for  this  is  that  while 
the  knowledge  that  he  must  die  is  so  certain  and  ineluc- 
table, the  opposite  impulse  to  forget,  repress,  and  deny 
this  fact  also  has  behind  it  the  momentum  of  ages.  The 
rank,  raw  death-thought  that  our  late  dear  ones  are,  and 
that  we  shall  soon  become,  masses  of  rotting  putridity, 

459 


SENESCENCE 

most  offensive  of  all  things  to  sense  and  sources  of  loath- 
some and  mortal  contagion,  is  so  rarely  allowed  to  escape 
its  inveterate  censorship  that  we  are  all  liable  to  become 
neurotic  toward  it  if  it  does  so. 

One  envisagement  of  an  erstwhile  dear  one  who  had 
become  this  most  loathsome  of  all  objects  drove  Buddha 
to  renounce  his  throne,  wealth,  and  family,  and  to  be- 
come a  mendicant  and  a  seeker  for,  if  not  an  antidote  at 
least  a  palliative  for  the  awful  death-thought.  The 
great  religion  he  founded  is  essentially  a  religion  of  pity 
for  man  because  he  is  doomed  to  die.  Its  founder 
aspired  to  be  the  world's  great  consoler,  accepting 
frankly  the  stark  and  gruesome  thought  of  death  with 
all  its  horrifying  implications. 

Schopenhauer,  who  had  a  very  morbid  fear  of  death 
till  near  the  close  of  his  life,  when  it  seemed  to  quite 
abate,  developed  views  about  it  that  have  had  immense 
influence  throughout  the  world,  especially  in  Germany. 
He  believed  his  views  to  be  modern  expressions  of 
ancient  Hindu  philosophy  and  also  that  all  systems  of 
philosophy  are  primarily  either  comforts  for  or  antidotes 
to  death.9  The  power  behind  creative  evolution  he  calls 
the  will-to-live,  which  is  blind  and  unreasonable.  "It  is 
not  the  knowing  part  of  our  ego  that  fears  death,  but  the 
fuga  mortis  proceeds  entirely  and  alone  from  the  blind 
will  with  which  everything  is  filled."  Only  the  will  as  it 
exhibits  itself  in  the  body  is  destroyed  by  death.  We 
should  no  more  dread  the  time  when  we  shall  not  be  than 
we  regret  the  time  before  birth  when  we  were  not.  The 
infinite  time  before  us  is  no  more  dreadful  than  the  in- 
finite time  that  preceded  us.  As  of  sleep,  we  may  say : 
Where  we  are,  death  is  not ;  and  where  death  is,  we  are 
not.  "If  one  knocked  on  the  graves  and  asked  the  dead 
whether  they  wished  to  rise  again,  they  would  all  shake 

•  The  World  as  Will  and  Idea,  vol.  iii,  p.  249  et  seq. 
460 


THE  PSYCHOLOGY  OF  DEATH 

their  heads."  We  were  enticed  into  life  by  the  hope  of 
more  favorable  conditions  of  existence  and  death  is  dis- 
appointment and  return  to  the  womb  of  nature,  who  is  all 
the  while  entirely  indifferent  to  both  our  birth  and  death. 
Only  small  minds  fear  it.  It  is  to  the  species  what  sleep 
is  to  the  individual.  All  that  exists  is  worthy  only  of 
being  destroyed. 

We  come  into  life  buoyant  and  happy  but  before  leav- 
ing it  have  to  pay  for  all  the  joy  by  pain  enough  to  com- 
pensate. True,  the  intellect,  which  is  an  individual  acqui- 
sition, is  sloughed  off  by  death,  while  the  will  is  given  its 
freedom  again.  "The  will  of  man,  in  itself  individual, 
separates  itself  in  death  from  the  intellect,"  so  that  new 
generations  get  new  intellects.  This  is  the  truth  that 
underlies  the  doctrine  of  metempsychosis  or  palingenesis 
and  is  the  faith  of  half  the  world.  Here,  too,  roots  the 
philosophy  of  eternal  recurrence.  The  present  genera- 
tion in  its  inner  metaphysical  nature,  that  is,  in  its  will, 
is  identical  with  every  generation  that  has  preceded,  but 
we  do  not  recognize  either  our  previous  form  of  exist- 
ence or  the  friends  we  once  knew  in  a  former  state  be- 
cause the  intellect,  with  its  memory  and  perceptions,  is 
only  phenomenal  and  individual.  Christianity  gave  itself 
a  needlessly  hard  task  in  representing  the  soul  as  created 
de  novo  and  in  failing  to  recognize  that  pre-  and  post- 
existence  support  each  other.  "Death  is  the  great  repri- 
mand which  the  will-to-live,  or  more  especially  the  ego- 
ism which  is  essential  to  this,  receives  through  the  course 
of  nature,  and  it  may  be  conceived  as  a  punishment  for 
our  existence.  It  is  the  painful  loosening  of  the  knot 
which  the  act  of  generation  has  tied  with  sexual  pleasure, 
the  violent  destruction  coming  from  without  of  the  fun- 
damental error  of  our  nature,  the  great  disillusion.  We 
are  at  bottom  something  that  ought  not  to  be ;  therefore 
we  cease  to  be."  The  loss  of  our  individuality  is  thus 
only  apparent  or  phenomenal.  "Death  is  the  great  op- 
461 


SENESCENCE 

portunity  to  be  no  longer  I."  "During  life  the  will  of 
man  is  without  freedom.  Death  looses  his  bonds  and 
gives  him  his  true  freedom  which  lies  in  his  essc,  not  in 
his  operari."  Individuality  is  one-sided  and  "does  not 
constitute  the  inner  kernel  of  our  being"  but  is  rather  to 
be  conceived  as  an  aberration  of  it.  Thus  death  is  a 
"restitutio  ad  integrum"  The  wise  man  wishes  to  die 
really  and  not  merely  apparently  and  so  desires  no  con- 
tinuation of  his  personality.  "The  existence  which  we 
know  we  will  all  give  up ;  what  we  get  instead  of  it  is,  in 
our  eyes,  nothing  because  our  existence  with  reference 
to  that  is  nothing"  (Nirvana). 

It  is  an  illusion  to  place  the  ego  in  consciousness  be- 
cause in  fact  "my  personal  phenomenal  existence  is  just 
as  infinitely  small  a  part  of  my  true  nature  as  I  am  of  the 
world."  "What  is  the  loss  of  this  individuality  to  me 
who  bear  in  me  the  possibility  of  innumerable  individ- 
ualities?" Individuality  is  thus  "a  special  error,  a  false 
step,  something  that  had  better  not  be,  nay  something 
which  it  is  the  real  end  of  life  to  bring  us  back  from." 
Death  is,  thus,  the  awakening  from  the  dream  of  life, 
which  is  made  up  of  trivialities  and  contradictions,  time 
being  only  one  of  the  principles  of  individuation  and  hav- 
ing no  absolute  existence  but  being  merely  a  form  of 
knowledge  of  it.  Will  is  the  true  thing  itself.  It  is 
human  nature  that  is  perdurable.  It  is  true  that  we 
know  only  even  our  will  as  phenomenon  and  not  what 
it  really  and  absolutely  is  in  itself.  Knowledge  is  entirely 
distinct  from  will  but  the  latter  is  always  and  everywhere 
primal.  The  inveterate  blunder  of  philosophers  is  to 
place  the  eternal  element  in  the  intellect  while  in  fact  it 
lies  solely  in  the  universal  will  and  struggle  to  live,  which 
is  indestructible.  We  cannot  know  it  because  of  the 
essential  limitations  of  consciousness  per  se,  but  in  the 
true  being  of  things  free  from  these  forms  the  latter  dis- 
tinction between  the  individual  and  the  race  disappears 
462 


THE  PSYCHOLOGY  OF  DEATH 

and  the  two  are  identical.  The  continuation  of  the  spe- 
cies is  really  the  image  of  the  indestructibility  of  the 
individual. 

We  are  lured  into  life  by  the  hope  of  pleasure  and 
retained  in  it  by  fear  of  death ;  but  both  are  equally  illu- 
sions. It  is  strange  that  the  only  thing  in  us  that  really 
fears  death,  namely,  the  will,  is  precisely  that  which  is 
never  affected  by  it.  "Thus,  although  the  individual 
consciousness  does  not  survive  death,  yet  that  survives 
it  which  alone  struggles  against  it,  namely,  the  will." 
Neither  the  intellect  nor  anything  in  it  is  indestructible 
for  knowledge  is  only  secondary  and  derived  from  the 
objectivizations  of  the  will.  "The  intellect  is  dropped 
when  it  has  served  its  purpose.  Death  and  birth  are  the 
constant  renewal  of  the  consciousness  of  the  will,  in  itself 
without  end  and  without  beginning,  which  alone  is,  as  it 
were,  the  substance  of  existence."  When  in  death  the 
will  is  separated  from  the  intellect,  it  feels  lost  because 
it  has  so  long  depended  on  it,  and  hence  we  fear.  Life  is 
only  a  heavy  dream  into  which  the  will-to-live  has  fallen. 
To  the  dying  we  may  say,  "Thou  ceasest  to  be  some- 
thing which  thou  hadst  done  better  never  to  become." 
Thus  generations  of  individuals  are  constantly  reappear- 
ing, each  fitted  out  with  new  intellects.  But  every  new 
form  of  life  is  only  an  assumption  in  another  form  of  the 
same  will.  Thus  for  Schopenhauer  death  is  emancipa- 
tion of  the  will  from  its  slavery  to  consciousness,  a  break- 
ing down  of  the  wall  it  has  erected  between  individuals, 
a  regression  to  the  ultimate  momentum  that  underlies 
evolution,  so  that  new  individuals  made  of  the  same  will, 
but  disencumbered  of  the  limitations  life  and  mind  im- 
pose, are  ever  starting  again.  The  race  is  immortal  and 
even  back  of  that  nature  herself  is  still  more  so.  The 
rhythm  of  life  and  death  does  change  the  nature  or  the 
form  of  the  eternal  currents  of  existence. 

But,  leaving  Schopenhauer,  we  must  go  back  to  the 

463 


SENESCENCE 

very  beginnings  of  humanity  to  realize  all  that  the  death- 
thought  has  done  in  the  world  and  to  understand  how 
man  has  always  wrestled  with  it,  tried  to  fight  it  down, 
and  devised  so  many  ways  and  means  of  escaping  from 
it.  Probably  there  was  never  a  stage  of  human  life  so 
low  that  corpses  were  not  separated  from  the  living  and 
put  away  by  themselves,  so  that  necrophilism  hardly 
seems  to  be  an  atavistic  psychic  rudiment.  Man  dis- 
poses of  corpses  by  fire,  water,  or  inhumation,  towers 
of  silence,  tombs,  cemeteries  and  other  homes  set  apart 
for  them,  while  animals  do  nothing  of  this  kind.  He 
alone  cannot  endure  the  spectacle  of  the  fate  that  nature 
provides  and  so  shroud,  coffin,  flowers,  monuments, 
shrubs,  trees,  serve  to  divert  attention  from  what  is 
going  on  in  the  sepulchre  below. 

But  the  great  diversion,  coeval  with  the  beginning  of 
corpse  disposal,  was  the  conception  of  a  soul  separable 
from  the  body  and  surviving  it,  and  this  is  as  old  as 
animism.  Other  factors,  of  course,  contributed  to  the 
primitive  belief  in  souls  but  when  and  wherever  it  arose 
it  became  the  chief  distractor  from  and  the  great  negator 
of  the  death-thought.  Now,  as  the  body  is  not  all,  death 
is  not  complete  and  some  part  of  us,  however  tenuous, 
lives  on.  Let  the  carcass  rot.  We  can  now  focus  our 
attention  upon  a  spirit  that  outlives  the  flesh  and  this 
invention  is  the  chief  panacea  mankind  has  found 
against  the  most  gruesome  of  all  its  ills.  In  the  very 
crudest  and  crassest  form  of  belief  in  a  separable  soul 
lie  the  promise  and  potency  of  all  the  quellers  of  death- 
thoughts  that  have  arisen  from  it;  and  so,  when  in  the 
course  of  time  it  came  that  the  air  was  becoming  as  full 
of  ghosts  as  the  earth  was  of  corpses,  they  too  had  to  be 
partitioned  oflf  from  the  living  and  given  their  own  abode 
beyond  some  river,  sea,  mountain  or  other  barrier,  or 
beneath  or  above  the  earth.  Whatever  betide,  the  souls 
of  the  departed  must  be  driven  and  kept  away  by 

464 


THE  PSYCHOLOGY  OF  DEATH 

apotropic  rites  or  by  sacrifices,  the  motto  of  which  was 
do  ut  abais.  Thus  the  living  had  to  herd  the  souls  of  the 
dead  as  they  had  their  bodies  in  order  that  they  them- 
selves might  be  free  and  sane.  This  was  a  great  achieve- 
ment, which  spiritists  and  psychic  researchers  tend  to 
undo,  for  ghosts  must  be  laid  just  as  bodies  must  be  bur- 
ied and  the  decomposing  souls  that  appear  in  seances  are 
only  less  offensive  to  common  sense  than  the  mouldering 
bodies  are  to  sense. 

Thus  the  fear  of  death  has  always  called  attention 
more  strongly  than  anything  else  to  the  soul  and  to 
psychology.  Something  leaves  the  human  body  at  death 
and  has  some  power  of  independent  existence;  but  just 
as  the  body  must  be  put  away  so  ghosts  must  be  laid  or 
driven  off.  In  primitive  culture  the  souls  of  the  dead 
tend  to  linger  near  the  body.  Sometimes  widows  are 
plunged  into  water  to  drown  off  the  souls  of  their  dead 
husbands  before  they  can  marry  again.  Some  tribes 
turn  out  en  masse  at  stated  times  to  frighten  away  the 
spirits,  as  they  do  to  get  rid  of  vermin  and  rats  or  to 
clean  house.  Ghosts  may  be  burned  in  effigy.  A  window 
or  hole  in  the  roof  must  be  opened  for  the  soul  of  the 
dead  to  escape  and  afterwards  closed.  The  body  is  car- 
ried several  times  around  the  house  so  that  the  soul  can- 
not find  its  way  back.  Those  unjustly  treated  or  not 
buried  may  return  for  vengeance.  Some  think  tomb- 
stones were  primitively  to  hold  down  the  souls  of  the 
dead,  just  as  the  Tiber  was  turned  and  Attila  buried  in 
its  bed  and  it  was  then  made  to  flow  back  again  so  as  to 
keep  him  in  the  land  of  spirits.  In  Gurney's  Phantasms 
of  the  Living  ghosts  have  their  chief  power  at  or  near 
the  moment  of  death.  It  is  one  of  the  great  functions  of 
the  medicine  man  to  dispose  of  the  spirits  of  the  dead  and 
many  rites  were  devised  to  relegate  them  to  some  place 
appointed.  The  living  have  their  own  domain  and  their 
own  rights,  which  the  dead  must  respect.  Only  the 

465 


SENESCENCE 

witch  makes  havoc  with  this  order  by  bringing  back  the 
souls  of  the  departed.  Thus  many  kinds  of  barriers 
grew  up  between  the  living  and  the  dead — distance, 
oblivion,  a  stream,  a  belt  of  fire,  a  deep  chasm,  a  high 
divide,  etc.,  so  that  the  ghost  world  became  hard  to  get  to 
or  from.  Thus,  in  general,  man  does  not  wish  to  go  to 
the  realm  of  ghosts  or  to  have  them  trespass  upon  his 
preserves.  The  New  Zealanders  conceived  such  pre- 
serves for  their  dead  over  the  precipice  of  Reinga;  the 
Fiji  Islanders  in  their  deep  and  fiery  canons;  the  Sand- 
wich Islanders  in  the  subterranean  abodes  of  Akea ;  the 
Kamchatkans  in  an  underground  Elysium;  the  Indians 
in  a  Happy  Hunting  Ground;  the  Greenlanders  deep 
under  the  sea ;  the  old  Teutons  in  Walhalla,  the  temple  of 
the  slain  with  its  columns  of  spears  and  roof  of  shields ; 
and  the  Greeks  and  Romans  in  the  realm  of  Pluto.  There 
are  many  roads  and  many  ushers  to  conduct  souls  to 
their  own  home — sunbeams,  the  Milky  Way,  paths 
through  caverns,  or  over  the  rainbow  bridge  Bifrost; 
while  in  Greece  Charon  and  in  Egypt  Anubis  carried 
souls  across  or  through  the  interval  or  partition.  In  all 
these  ways  man  has  sought  to  conceive  of  the  souls  of  the 
dead  as  effectively  shepherded  in  folds  of  their  own. 

Other  studies  show  that  there  is  a  sense  in  which  every 
incident  of  a  funeral  tends  to  lay  ghosts.  If  we  simply 
hear  at  a  distance  of  the  death  of  our  friends,  we  are  far 
more  liable  to  receive  visits  from  their  revenient  spirits 
or  dream  of  them  as  alive  than  if  we  have  actually  seen 
them  buried,  because  all  the  incidents  of  this  ceremony 
bring  home,  even  to  our  unconscious  selves,  the  fact  that 
they  are  really  dead  and  gone  from  us,  soul  and  body. 
Thus  the  tears,  Scripture  reading,  badges  of  mourning, 
and  even  the  expense  tend  to  reef  in  our  sense  of  our 
dead  friend's  personality  and  to  make  it  powerless 
to  project  ghostly  phantasms,  because  such  ceremonials 
are  cathartic  and  preventative  of  all  such  hallucinations. 
466 


THE  PSYCHOLOGY  OF  DEATH 

Thus,  at  this  stage  of  the  story  of  the  immortality  cult 
we  have  two  worlds  well  apart  and  the  Jenseits,  or  the 
realm  of  death,  can  perhaps  be  reached  from  the  Dies- 
seits  of  the  body  only  by  a  long  and  dangerous  journey 
that  the  psyche  must  take  after  leaving  the  soma  to 
moulder.  Why  has  man  always  stood  in  such  awe  of  the 
ghosts  of  even  his  friends?  The  answer  is  not  simple. 
It  is  partly  because  he  wanted  to  be  free  from  their  con- 
straint. They  included  his  parents,  from  whose  control 
even  youth,  at  a  certain  stage,  wants  to  be  well  rid.  Even 
his  dearest  ones  might  cherish  some  secret  grudge  that 
could  now  be  indulged  in  with  impunity.  As  spirits  they 
have  certain  unknown  new  powers  for  mischief,  whereas 
if  they  were  enemies  they  could  use  these  powers  for 
revenge.  Toward  the  dead  we  generally  have  a  bad  con- 
science. They  can  often  read  our  secret  motives  while 
we  cannot  read  theirs.  Thus  man  propitiated  the  pallid 
shades  of  Orcus  by  offerings  and  sacrifices  to  abate  their 
malevolence  and  secure  their  good-will.  However  re- 
motely he  banished  them,  he  has  never  been  able  to 
realize  the  fact  that  they  were  utterly  dead  forever,  soul 
as  well  as  body.  All  his  will  to  rid  himself  of  them  has 
always  stopped  short  of  entire  fulfillment. 

On  the  contrary,  some  of  the  great  dead  he  has  not 
only  immortalized  but  deified.  Others  may  still  come 
back  at  midnight  in  a  dream  or  vision  at  some  weird 
haunted  spot  or  in  dire  emergencies;  or  if  conjured  by 
constraining  spells  of  sufficient  potency ;  perhaps  if  they 
have  not  been  rightly  buried ;  or  to  deliver  some  pregnant 
message ;  or,  again,  to  pronounce  a  curse  or  benediction. 
It  is  generally  hard  for  them  to  get  to  us  and  also,  having 
done  so,  to  make  their  presence  felt  and  they  are  perhaps 
so  exhausted  by  this  effort  that  they  can  tell  us  nothing; 
while  it  is  given  to  but  few  mortals  to  visit  their  abode 
and  come  back  unscathed  and  to  fewer  yet  it  is  given  to 
bring  back  others  with  them. 
467 


SENESCENCE 

One  of  the  most  momentous  steps  in  culture  was  taken 
by  the  ancient  Egyptians,  whose  religion,  more  than  that 
of  any  other  race,  might,  in  view  of  our  recent  knowl- 
edge of  it,  be  called  the  cult  of  the  dead  par  excellence. 
The  new  step  here  taken  consisted,  in  a  word,  in  making 
the  postmortem  status  of  the  soul  dependent  upon  virtue 
in  this  life,  thus  enlisting  the  mighty  power  of  the  next 
world  in  behalf  of  morals.  Their  famous  book  of  the 
dead  presupposes  "a  religious  belief  in  the  actual  revivi- 
fication of  the  body,"  because  of  which  hoped-for  event 
the  Egyptians  took  the  greatest  possible  care  to  preserve 
and  afterwards  to  hide  the  bodies  of  the  dead.  This 
famous  book  treats  of  the  soul's  journey  through 
Amenti,  of  the  gods  and  other  residents  there,  with  for- 
mulae that  will  deliver  the  migrant  thither  from  foes.  It 
contains  prayers  and  hymns  to  the  great  gods  intended 
to  recommend  him  to  all  of  them;  texts  that  must  be 
inscribed  on  both  the  amulets  and  bandages  of  the  mum- 
mies ;  plan  and  arrangement  of  the  mourning  chamber ; 
the  confession  before  the  assessors ;  the  scene  where  the 
heart  is  weighed  in  the  hall  of  Osiris ;  and  a  representa- 
tion of  the  Elysian  fields,  etc. 

At  death,  relatives  and  mourners  emerged  from  their 
houses  to  the  streets,  placed  mud  upon  their  heads, 
fasted,  and  priests  pronounced  an  oration  describing  the 
good  works  of  the  great  dead.  There  were  sometimes 
accusations  and  formal  judgments  by  the  forty  elders  as 
to  whether  or  not  the  burial  should  be  in  due  form  to 
convey  the  soul  to  the  gods.  If  the  verdict  was  favor- 
able, the  gods  were  entreated  to  admit  him  into  the  place 
reserved  for  the  good ;  if  not,  he  was  deprived  of  burial 
and  must  lie  in  his  own  house.  If  there  were  debts,  the 
body  was  given  to  creditors  as  a  pledge  until  the  sacred 
duty  of  redeeming  it  was  performed.  The  details  of 
embalmment  during  the  seventy-two  days  of  mourning 
were  given  in  great  profusion  for  each  part  of  the  body. 
468 


THE  PSYCHOLOGY  OF  DEATH 

Each  bandage  had  its  text  and  the  tomb  must  be  made  a 
proper  dwelling  place  for  the  ka,  or  soul,  which  will  stay 
there  as  long  as  the  body  does.  Each  process,  pledget, 
and  wrapping,  had  its  name  and  there  was  an  elaborate 
trade  in  bitumen,  which  is  the  meaning  of  the  word 
mummy. 

The  people  felt  great  satisfaction  in  preserving  and 
seeing  the  simulated  features  of  their  ancestors,  whom 
they  came  to  regard  in  some  sense  as  contemporaneous. 
The  welfare  of  the  soul  in  the  nether  world  depended 
upon  the  completeness  of  all  the  funeral  processes.  At 
the  height  of  this  central  cult  of  Egypt,  bulls,  antelopes, 
cats,  crocodiles,  ibis,  hawk,  frog,  toad,  scorpion,  snake, 
fish,  hippopotamus,  cow,  lion,  sphinx,  were  sacred  to  the 
gods  and  were  mummified,  while  the  scarab  was  loaded 
down  with  symbolic  meanings  and  became  central  in  all 
funeral  rites.  These  ceremonials  did  not  decline  until 
the  third  or  fourth  century  of  our  era  and  only  when 
Christianity  taught  that  the  body  would  be  given  back  in 
a  changed  and  incorruptible  form,  did  it  cease  to  be 
necessary  to  preserve  it  with  drugs.  This  necrophilism 
was  all  for  the  sake  of  the  soul  and  both  expressed  and 
strengthened  belief  in  it.  The  cult  of  no  race  has  been 
so  saturated  with  thanatism. 

In  all  we  know  of  the  folk-soul  there  is  no  more  strik- 
ing illustration  of  geneticism  than  the  slow  but  sure 
establishment  in  recent  years,  by  comparing  ancient 
myths  and  rites  with  the  findings  of  excavations,  of  the 
fact  that  in  the  great  countries  about  the  eastern  Medi- 
terranean, especially  Thrace,  Asia  Minor,  and  Egypt,  the 
highest  religious  consciousness  of  these  races  was  ex- 
pressed in  elaborate  cults  of  death  and  resurrection,  to 
have  participated  in  which  is  said  to  have  made  the 
celebrants  over  and  initiated  them  into  a  new  and  higher 
life.  All  was  so  secret  and  oath-bound  that  it  found 
little  representation,  save  the  most  incidental  allusions  in 
469 


SENESCENCE 

history  and  literature,  so  that  it  was  reserved  for  modern 
research  to  uncover,  reconstruct,  and  understand  its 
tremendous  power. 

Osiris,  Persephone,  Attis,  the  lover  of  the  all-mother 
Cybele,  Demeter  and  Dionysius  in  the  Eleusinian  mys- 
teries, Astar  in  her  restoration  of  Phanaeus  and  many 
others,  some  with  very  high  and  full  and  some  with  very 
scanty  and  fragmentary  developments  of  the  myth  and 
cult,  died  and  perhaps  went  to  Hades  and  came  back 
bringing,  now  one,  now  many  with  them.  Typical  of 
these  ceremonies  were  the  funereal  sadness,  death  dirge, 
wailings,  active  symbolic  manifestations  of  grief  and 
despair,  as  if  to  attain  the  very  acme  of  psychalgia.  The 
great,  good,  beautiful,  divine  hero  is  not  only  dead  but 
has  perhaps  gone  over  into  the  nether-world  to  defy 
death  and  the  power  of  evil  in  their  stronghold  and  to 
conquer  and  bind  them.  There  is,  then,  a  phase  of  pain- 
ful, anxious,  silent  suspense.  Will  he  succeed  and  return 
or  will  he  fail  and  never  reappear?  Then,  when  the 
tension  is  at  the  very  breaking-point,  comes  the  thumic 
ebb,  rebound,  or  reversal.  Someone  whispers  or  cries 
aloud,  "He  has  won  and  comes  back,"  and  then  all  is 
changed.  Lights  flare  out  in  the  darkness.  Instead  of 
tears  and  sobs  there  is  joy  unrestrained,  congratulations, 
embraces,  and  soon  frantic  ecstasy,  leaping,  shouting, 
wine,  song,  revelry,  bells,  fireworks,  and  sometimes  in 
degenerate  days,  drunkenness  and  gluttony  with  the 
sacramental  elements  and,  in  token  of  the  triumphs  of 
the  higher  love,  perhaps  carnal  debauch  and  revelry  and 
always  ecstasy  and  inebriation  with  euphoria.  Thus 
from  three  to  six  centuries  B.C.  men  strove  to  attain  an 
immunity  bath  that  should  safeguard  them  from  all  ex- 
cessive pain  and  pleasure  of  life  by  participation  in  a 
pageantry  or  dramatization  of  the  eternal  struggle  be- 
tween the  greatest  evil,  death,  and  the  dread  of  it  and 
the  greatest  joy  of  the  most  intense  living,  thus  ensuring 
470 


THE  PSYCHOLOGY  OF  DEATH 

their  souls  against  being  led  captive  by  the  pleasures  or 
pains  of  life,  neither  of  which  could  be  so  extreme  as 
these,  by  keeping  wide  open  the  way  from  the  extremest 
depression  to  the  maximum  of  exaltation. 

Now  all  this  rests  in  every  case  where  it  can  be  traced 
upon  the  retreat  of  the  sun  and  the  death  of  the  world, 
symbolized  by  winter  and  the  return  of  spring,  rein- 
forced, of  course,  by  the  alternations  of  day  and  night. 
These  deities  or  their  prototypes  were  originally  gods  of 
vegetation  and  their  resurrections  are  vernal.  The  ever- 
lasting bars  that  broke  were  snow  and  ice.  The  king  of 
glory  that  came  in  when  the  gates  were  lifted  was  spring, 
the  conqueror,  or  dawn ;  and  in  these  secular  changes  of 
the  year  are  found  the  first  pref ormations  of  the  soul  and 
the  momentum  that  still  subconsciously  reinforces  be- 
lief in  a  life  after  death  and  supplies  always  an  anodyne 
and  often  an  antidote  for  the  death-fear. 

It  was  on  this  basis  that  Christianity,  especially  as 
interpreted  by  Paul,  arose.10  The  culminating  event  in 
its  story  took  place  in  the  few  days  between  the  burial  of 
Jesus  and  the  Pentecostal  outburst.  Never  in  history,  if 
it  be  history,  and  never  in  the  subject  story  of  Mansoul, 
if  this  be  the  stage  on  which  it  was  all  accomplished,  has 
there  been  such  an  au  rebours  from  the  nadir  of  depres- 
sion of  the  disciples,  because  the  type-man  of  their  race, 
who  had  grown  to  their  minds  to  be  a  fully  diplomated 
God-man,  was  completely  dead — and  that  in  shame  and 
ignominy — and  his  corpse  sealed  up  to  moulder  and  rot 
in  a  rock.  Then  came  first  the  timid  and  then  the  plenary 
conviction  that  He  had  conquered  death  and  even  hell, 
risen  from  the  dead,  walked  and  conversed  with  friends 
in  an  attenuated  body  and  had  visibly  ascended  to 
Heaven  and  God.  Once  fully  convinced  that  this  was  all 
veritably  true,  witnessed  and  attested  by  every  sense 

10  See  my  Jesus,  the  Christ,  in  the  Light  of  Psychology,  Chap.  XI,  "Death 
and  Resurrection  of  Jesus." 

471 


SENESCENCE 

and  proof,  the  great  incubus  of  ages  was  thrown  off  and 
Death,  the  supreme  terror,  was  abolished.  This  brought 
an  ecstasy  or  intoxication  of  joy  called  the  gift  of  the 
Holy  Spirit,  which  possessed  the  lives  of  believers.  The 
ecstatic  disciples  shouted  in  weird  unknown  tongues  until 
onlookers  thought  them  "full  of  new  wine"  (Acts  2:13, 
15),  gazed  all  day  into  Heaven,  henceforth  the  home  of 
souls,  and  had  to  be  exhorted  to  cease  their  raving  jubi- 
lations and  go  to  work.  In  this  exhilarating  new  joy 
and  freedom  they,  and  later  their  successors,  met  the 
nine  persecutions,  during  which  martyrdom  became  a 
passion  and  tender  youths  and  maidens  could  hardly  be 
restrained  from  throwing  themselves  to  the  wild  beasts 
in  the  arena  as  the  supreme  crown  and  testimony  to  their 
faith. 

So,  too,  Christian  asceticism  followed  from  the  same 
motive.  This  life  was  mean  and  it  mattered  little  how 
squalid  it  was,  for  it  was  only  a  provisional,  probation- 
ary moment  compared  to  the  eternal  joy  and  happiness 
where  all  real  worths  and  values  were  confidently 
awaited  and  compared  to  which  those  of  earth  were  only 
dross.  "There  is  no  death.  What  seems  so  is  tran- 
sition" to  an  infinitely  higher  state  than  this.  Never  did 
the  other  world  so  absorb  the  power  of  this.  Visions, 
trances,  homilies,  poems,  poetry  and  theology  fitted  the 
other  world  out  with  every  good  and  the  chief  offices  of 
the  church  were  to  keep  the  keys  of  the  transcendental 
world  and  to  wield  its  tremendous  sanctions  in  a  way  to 
dominate  life  and  determine  good  and  evil.  Thus  never 
was  the  greatest  Verdrdngung  (repression)  that  ever 
oppressed  the  human  race  so  completely  removed.  The 
most  essential  claim  of  Christianity  is  to  have  obviated 
the  fear  of  death  and  made  the  king  of  terrors  into  a 
good  friend,  if  not  into  a  boon  companion,  by  this  the 
most  masterly  of  all  psychotherapies.  If  it  be  only  a 
pragmatic  postulate  or  hypothesis  or  Als  Ob  (As  If )  in 
472 


THE  PSYCHOLOGY  OF  DEATH 

Vaihinger's  sense,  it  has  worked  well  on  the  whole.  De- 
spite the  ever  present  dangers  of  transcendental  selfish- 
ness that  prompts  only  to  save  one's  own  soul,  it  is  never- 
theless the  supreme  demonstration  of  the  "Allmacht" 
(omnipotence)  of  the  folksoul  to  minister  to  its  own 
gravest  diseases  and  banish  its  greatest  enemy,  the 
death  fear. 

Thus  Jesus  is  most  widely  known  as  the  Man  of  the 
Cross  and  the  crucifix  and  even  the  fragments  of  the 
Cross  are  revered  throughout  the  Christian  world.  In 
no  other  religion  has  the  death  of  the  founder  had  such 
prominence  or  efficacy.  All  the  events  of  Holy  Week 
have  been  wrought  out  in  great  detail  by  tradition  and 
art.  Its  story  is  the  world's  great  masterpiece  of  pathos. 
The  ecstasy  of  the  passover  represents  the  culmination 
of  the  conquest  of  the  death-fear  by  Mansoul.  The  gift 
of  the  Holy  Spirit  was  simply  the  conviction  that  death 
itself  was  dead.  For  centuries  preaching  consisted  of 
nothing  else  than  telling  this  story,  which  was  the  gospel 
of  the  gladdest  of  all  glad  tidings.  If  Christ  is  not  arisen, 
our  faith  is  vain.  To  doubt  this  has  always  been  the 
most  culpable  of  all  heresies  save  that  of  atheism  itself. 

Thus  night,  day;  sleep,  waking;  autumn,  spring — 
cadence  the  soul  to  life  and  death.  To  these  were  added 
the  higher  symbolisms  of  sin  and  holiness,  illness  and 
health,  old  age  and  rejuvenation,  crushing  despair  and 
triumphant  hope,  pessimism  and  optimism,  with  the  lat- 
ter and  not  the  former,  as  had  often  been  the  case  before, 
final  and  triumphant.  Every  known  race  of  man  initiates 
the  young  at  puberty  by  a  ritualized  pain  and  pleasure 
treatment  that  anticipates  all  this.  Youth  was  isolated, 
made  to  fast,  scarified,  tattooed,  made  to  endure  extreme 
hardship,  fatigue,  sometimes  partial  burial;  and  then 
followed  remission,  dance,  feasting,  perhaps  orgies,  only 
after  which  did  the  young  become  full  members  of  the 
tribe.  Thus  it  is  the  inveterate  consensus  of  man  through 
473 


SENESCENCE 

all  his  history  that  on  the  threshold  of  mature  life  each 
individual  should  be  oriented  to  its  sovereign  master's 
pain  and  pleasure  by  extreme  experience  with  each  in 
turn,  as  if  thereby  to  develop  the  power  of  elasticity, 
resilience,  and  reaction,  and  to  impress  upon  it  through- 
out all  its  profoundest  depths  the  conviction  that  there  is 
no  defeat  that  should  not  be  followed  by  victory,  no  dark- 
ness so  black  as  that  which  just  precedes  day,  no  virtue 
like  that  which  has  just  overcome  evil,  no  passivity  that 
will  not  tend  to  react  toward  progressiveness.  Indeed,  this 
is  a  kind  of  modulus  that  Christianity  has  impressed  upon 
the  entire  occidental  world  and  it  is  this  that  has  given 
it  its  courage,  elan,  and  enterprise.  This  is  the  chief 
imprint  it  has  left  upon  the  human  soul,  even  for  those 
who  have  forgotten  or  denied  all  its  tenets.  Thus  there 
is  a  deep  psychological  sense  in  which  all  those  who  have 
not  passed  rigorously  through  the  experience  that  Chris- 
tianity symbolizes  by  the  phrase  "dying  and  rising  with 
Jesus"  are  not  initiated  into  life  and  remain  immature. 
It  is  they  who  are  more  liable  to  be  arrested  in  the 
trough  of  the  wave  and  to  become  discouraged  or  even 
melancholic  and  when  they  meet  the  ills  and  hardships 
of  life  to  flee  from  reality  and  seek  some  refuge  from  its 
stern  demands,  because  life  in  them  has  not  conquered 
death.  They  have  not  learned  the  great  law  of  taking 
their  pleasure  and  pain  in  the  things  they  ought  and  in  a 
measure  proportionate  to  each.  Indeed,  modern  psycho- 
therapy is,  for  the  most  part,  a  new  application  of  this 
old  mode  of  rescue  for  such  souls  in  distress.  Maeder  n 
has  well  and  wisely  found  all  its  processes  typified  in 
Dante's  descent  into  hell  at  the  nethermost  center  of  the 
earth  where  Satan  himself  was;  and  his  emergence  a 
slow  ascent  up  the  purgatorial  mount  to  the  infinite  joys 
of  paradise,  first  under  the  guidance  of  a  human  sage 

"Gufrison  et  Evolution  dans  la  Vie  de  I'Ame, 

474 


THE  PSYCHOLOGY  OF  DEATH 

and  then  led  by  Beatrice,  a  type  of  the  supreme  self- 
directing  oracle  within.  Dante,  as  everyone  knows, 
called  his  poem  a  comedy  because  it  had  a  happy  ending, 
but  every  modern  novel  and  drama  is  constructed  accord- 
ing to  the  same  formula  that  Christianity  made  current. 

And  who  would  read  a  story  or  see  a  play  in  which  at 
the  end  the  hero  or  heroine  did  not  achieve  all  they  de- 
sired ?  And,  again,  why  do  we  love  to  experience  all  the 
desperate  miseries  to  which  our  favorites  in  story  and 
on  the  stage  are  subjected  before  the  happy  denouement 
begins  to  show  but  that  we  are  dead  sure  that  in  the  end 
both  the  villain  and  the  virtuous  will  get  their  deserts. 
Indeed,  at  least  one  German  "pithiatric"  psychiatrist 
prescribes  a  drastic  experience  of  the  story  of  the  Cross 
as  a  therapeutic  method  in  certain  cases.  All  this,  of 
course,  has  no  reference  to  the  question  whether  the 
story  is  all  fact  or  all  fancy.  The  psychologist  only 
studies  its  effects  and  its  inner  mechanisms,  which,  save 
for  those  who  have  grown  scrupulous  under  the  influence 
of  modern  controversy,  are  no  more  relevant  than  is  the 
historicity  of  Hamlet,  Lear,  or  Portia  to  the  audience  in 
a  theater.  In  the  patristic  and  in  the  Middle  Ages, 
and  even  now,  children  and  neurotics  have  suffered 
almost  to  the  point  of  stigmatization  at  any  realistic 
description  or  at  the  Ober-Ammergau  dramatization  of 
the  items  of  the  crucifixion  and  feel  with  all  the  vicari- 
ousness  that  sympathy  can  yield  the  thorns,  bitter  cup, 
nails,  spear,  etc.,  as  we  have  elsewhere  shown  in  detail.12 

But  despite  all  the  realistic  pedagogy  of  the  church  the 
conviction  of  another  life  is  very  rapidly  fading  from  the 
modern  consciousness  and  even  within  the  church  itself 
is  becoming  an  ineffective  shadow  of  a  shade.  Dr. 
George  A.  Gordon  of  the  Old  South  Church,  Boston, 
preaching  to  the  Congregational  State  Association  in 

uSee  my  Jesus,  the  Christ,  in  the  Light  of  Psychology,  Vol.  II,  Ch.  II. 
475 


SENESCENCE 

1902,  said:  "We  ministers  of  the  Lord  Jesus  Christ 
know  as  no  other  persons  in  the  community  what  a 
paralysis  has  come  over  intelligent  and  thinking  people 
in  regard  to  the  reality  of  the  other  life.  So  many  doubt 
it;  so  few  have  any  strong  confidence  in  regard  to  it." 
This  opinion,  of  course,  was  posited  not  only  on  the  con- 
fidences of  the  pastor's  study  but  also  on  the  confidences 
of  the  sick  room  and  the  death  chamber.  The  tendency 
has  steadily  increased  and  in  funeral  services  we  hear 
little  of  future  rewards  and  punishments  and  only  of  rest 
and  peace.  The  old  evidence  from  death-beds  is  fal- 
lacious. 

Sir  William  Osier"  says: 

I  have  careful  records  of  about  five  hundred  death-beds, 
studied  particularly  with  reference  to  the  modes  of  death  and 
the  sensations  of  the  dying.  The  latter  alone  concerns  us  here. 
Ninety  suffered  bodily  pain  or  distress  of  one  sort  or  another, 
eleven  showed  mental  apprehension,  two  positive  terror,  one  ex- 
pressed spiritual  exaltation,  one  bitter  remorse.  The  great  ma- 
jority gave  no  sign  one  way  or  the  other;  like  their  birth,  their 
death  was  a  sleep  and  a  forgetting.  The  Preacher  was  right :  in 
this  matter  man  hath  no  preeminence  over  the  beast — "as  the  one 
dieth  so  dieth  the  other."  " 

M  Science  and  Immortality,  Boston,  1904,  54  pp. 

14  G.  Lionel  Taylor  (The  Stages  of  Human  Life,  N.  Y.,  Dutton,  1921. 
363  p.)  says  that  there  are  four  stages  in  the  process  of  what  he  believes 
to  be  normal  dying:  first  there  is  an  appealing,  anxious,  puzzled  look  at 
the  approach  of  a  great  crisis,  as  if  wondering  what  the  person  will  meet 
in  the  great  darkness  that  is  supervening,  all  not  without  an  element  of 
fear ;  then  there  supervenes  a  peace  and  poise,  in  which  stage  leavetakings 
are  often  made;  third,  when  the  last  breath  is  drawn  there  is  a  strong 
impression  on  the  bystanders  that  there  has  been  a  real  departure,  that 
something  very  actual  has  left,  so  that  the  body  is  no  longer  the  friend. 
Then  for  perhaps  an  hour  there  is  on  the  face  of  the  dead  a  look  of 
unnatural  beauty  and  tranquillity  which  slowly  fades  and  corruption  begins. 

Some  in  contemplating  their  own  demise  think  chiefly  of  the  isolation  it 
involves.  The  most  sympathetic  friend  can  only  go  to  the  brink  of  the 
dark  river  which  we  must  all  cross  absolutely  alone.  Suicide  lovers  some- 
times vainly  attempt  companionship.  Those  about  to  die  who  are  con- 
scious of  their  impending  departure  may  bid  sad  farewells  to  their  friends. 
Aging  and  sickly  people  conscious  of  an  impending  end  but  with  their 
faculties  intact  realize  the  inevitableness  of  dying  alone  no  matter  how 

476 


THE  PSYCHOLOGY  OF  DEATH 

This  belief  persists,  thus,  only  as  a  dead  article  of  faith 
which  men  no  longer  live  by.  It  is  a  desiccated  herbarium 
specimen  and  not  a  living  plant.  If  common  observation 
did  not  sufficiently  show  this,  it  has  appeared  very  sig- 
nificantly and  statistically  in  many  recent  studies.15 
These  showed  that  it  diminishes  progressively  as  we  go 
up  the  educational  grades  from  high  school  through  the 
university  and  that,  in  general,  the  more  cultivated  man 
becomes,  the  less  he  believes  in  any  form  of  personal  sur- 
vival. If  we  had  a  similar  investigation  of  the  old  as 
compared  with  the  young,  my  own  partial  studies  incline 
me  to  believe  that  this  conviction  of  personal  persistence 
beyond  the  grave  in  general  loses  its  force  in  senescence, 
as  indeed  it  becomes  vital  only  at  adolescence.  If  it  be 
thus  a  creed  that  first  blossoms  with  the  advent  and  tends 
to  decay  at  the  close  of  sexual  life,  we  have  a  new  key 
for  understanding  both  its  function  and  its  limitations. 
True,  it  often  persists,  if  only  feebly,  as  with  the 
momentum  of  a  spent  force,  in  those  who  have  not  fully 
realized  the  senium,  although  they  all  do  not  wish  to  be 
conserved  as  old  as  they  really  are  but  to  be  rejuvenated 
as  they  once  were. 


many  friends  are  about  but  are  silent  about  it  with  an  instinctive  re- 
luctance to  betray  any  of  the  perturbations  which  weaklings,  patheticists, 
and  hystericals  seek  refuge  in. 

To  others  the  thought  of  their  own  death  centers  in  the  idea  of  their 
body.  They  see  themselves  in  thought  pale,  rigid,  insentient,  and  follow  the 
fate  of  their  corpse  in  every  detail  at  least  up  to  interment  or  cremation, 
and  some  cannot  resist  a  rather  strong  imaginative  experience  as  to  how 
their  living  sentient  body  would  feel  the  rigidity,  the  cold,  the  treatment 
to  which  it  is  subjected,  the  gazing  of  friends,  a  custom  which  some 
interdict. 

A  third  group  focus  on  the  cessation  of  activities  which  begins  in  the 
dimming  of  the  senses  and  the  weakening  of  motor  or  other  powers, 
and  .here,  too,  we  find  two  attitudes :  that  of  compulsive  but  regretful 
renunciation,  and  the  other  of  longing  as  for  rest.  In  this  sense  death 
begins  with  the  first  abatement  of  powers,  and  as  we  have  time  slowly 
to  adjust  to  progressive  enfeeblement  we  do  so  more  and  more  readily. 

15  See  especially  J.  H.  Leuba,  The  Belief  in  God  and  Immortality,  1916, 
340  pp. 

477 


SENESCENCE 

In  what  follows  we  believe  it  will  appear  that  upon 
analysis  by  mechanisms  akin  to  metonymy  or  synec- 
doche the  vigor  with  which  we  have  clung  to  a  belief  in 
personal  is  really  motivated  by  a  deeper  belief  in  racial 
immortality  and  that  in  this  latter,  when  the  strophe  of 
life  is  succeeded  by  its  antistrophe,  the  deeper  faith  tends 
to  come  out  and  true  sages  realize  what  the  soul  meant 
by  what  the  tenuous  and  falsetto  faculty  called  faith 
blindly  groped  its  way  toward. 

The  psychic  factors  that  have  so  overdetermined  the 
hope-wish  of  personal  immortality  are  as  follows. 

I.  First  is  the  desire  to  be  remembered  and  esteemed 
by  survivors.  The  soul  abhors  oblivion  somewhat  as  it 
does  extinction.  We  wish  our  friends  not  only  to  think 
of  us  but  to  think  well  of  us.  How  satisfying  this  is  both 
to  those  who  die  and  to  those  who  live  is  seen  in  Con- 
fucianism, where  ancestor  worship  vicariates  for  belief 
in  personal  immortality.  It  would  almost  seem  that  some 
of  the  good  and  great  would  think  more  of  the  certainty 
of  being  canonized  in  due  time  or  perpetuated  in  the 
form  of  bronze  or  marble,  or  enrolled  in  some  temple 
of  fame,  than  of  personal  immortality.  At  any  rate,  this 
mundane,  would  in  some  degree  compensate  for  the  loss 
of  celestial  perpetuation.  Those  who  die  in  more  or  less 
full  consciousness  are  prone  in  their  last  moments  to 
dwell  upon  their  friends  far  more  than  they  do  upon 
their  own  future  state,  as  'if  the  enshrinement  they 
chiefly  sought  were  in  the  hearts  and  minds  of  those 
they  leave  behind.  Conversely,  those  who  die  alone, 
friendless,  or  with  the  execration  of  survivors,  cling  the 
more  to  the  rehabilitation  that  death  itself  always  tends 
to  bring.  On  the  basis  of  questionnaire  data  it  would 
seem  that  some  about  to  die  shudder  more  at  the 
thought  that  others  would  think  they  were  totally  ex- 
tinct at  death  than  from  inwardly  facing  this  conviction 
for  themselves.  We  want  others  to  think  we  are  enjoy- 
478 


THE  PSYCHOLOGY  OF  DEATH 

ing  the  best  the  universe  can  provide  for  its  favorites, 
because  in  that  case  they  will  think  more  highly  of  us 
since  we  have  obtained  the  diploma  of  the  cosmos,  that 
we  have  stood  the  test  and  have  graduated  summa  cum 
laude  from  the  terrestrial  curriculum.  Perhaps  if  we 
were  early  Christians  we  should  begin  to  "put  on  airs" 
and  affect  the  manners  of  a  higher  life  here  to  impress 
our  own  valuation  of  ourselves  upon  others.  An  ancient 
sage  would  rather  that  others  thought  him  bad  and 
hated  him  than  to  be  forgotten.  Thus,  in  fine,  if  all  knew 
that  they  and  all  their  good  deeds  would  never  fade  from 
grateful  memory  of  their  descendants,  the  conviction  of 
a  conscious  personal  existence  beyond  the  grave  would 
lose  one  of  its  preforming  determinants  and  reinforce- 
ments. Therefore,  those  concerned  to  keep  alive  the 
fate  and  hope  of  another  life  should  foster  any  agency 
that  keeps  the  memory  of  the  dead  green.  There  really 
ought  to  be  those  who  sum  up  effectively  the  good  les- 
sons and  meaning  of  every  life  when  it  closes,  as  a  kind 
of  mundane  judgment  day  so  that  no  good  influence  be 
lost  and  no  warning  fail  to  have  its  due  effect — a  court 
of  the  dead  to  pass  impartially  upon  each  life  as  it  sets 
out  to  sea.  We  censor  books  and  are  beginning  to  test 
eugenic  marriages,  etc.;  and  so,  if  all  knew  that  upon 
their  death  an  impartial  tribunal  would  pass  upon  their 
lives  in  the  interests  of  the  common  weal,  even  if  their 
verdict  came  late  or  was  given  only  to  those  most  inter- 
ested to  know,  ethical  culture  would  mark  a  great 
advance  and  the  fear  of  death,  instead  of  consoling  itself 
with  belief  in  a  future  life,  would  be  set  to  work  in  the 
interests  of  normal  lives  here. 

II.  The  second  mundane  surrogate  for  transcendental 
immortality  is  doing  things  that  will  affect  those  who  sur- 
vive or  will  perpetuate  our  will  and  works  to  those  who 
know  little  or  nothing  of  us  or  of  our  name.  Many  last 
wills  and  testaments  benefit  those  who  knew  nothing  of 

479 


SENESCENCE 

the  donor.  Many  such  have  reared  buildings,  started 
movements,  built  organizations,  written  books,  invented, 
created  works  of  art,  transformed  the  face  of  nature 
with  an  instinct  of  workmanship  in  which  all  thought  of 
self  was  merged.  All  our  lives  are  thus  greatly  influ- 
enced by  those  who  are  unknown.  The  egoistic  element 
tends  to  merge  in  a  disinterested  desire  to  make  part  of 
the  world  in  some  way  better  for  our  having  lived. 
Sometimes,  indeed,  anonymity  is  actively  striven  for  and 
the  individuality  o*f  benefactors  is  hidden.  The  phobia 
here  is  that  we  may  have  lived  for  naught.  Here  the 
idea  of  God  as  an  All-Discerner  who  sees  virtue  and  vice, 
and  rewards  or  punishes  in  secret,  cooperates.  Such  hid- 
den service  to  the  race,  with  no  thought  of  any  compensa- 
tion here  or  hereafter,  has  a  unique  charm  all  its  own. 
Scientific  discoveries  and  beneficent  inventions  have 
sometimes  thus  been  given  freely  to  all  without  any  per- 
sonal benefit  and  without  a  personal  label.  True  love 
sometimes  lavishes  every  gift,  opportunity,  and  joy  upon 
its  object,  with  no  stipulation  of  love  or  gratitude  or 
even  recognition  in  its  turn.  Indeed,  the  possession  of 
wealth  compels  more  or  less  attention  to  this  field  of  the 
immortality  of  influence.  Unlike  the  pauper,  the  million- 
aire must  forecast  if  he  would  try  to  shape  the  future ; 
and  even  if  great  givers  attach  their  names  to  their  be- 
quests, they  know  that  to  most  who  profit  by  them  their 
name  will  soon  mean  nothing.  Jubal  invented  music  and 
wandered  afar  and  when  he  came  back  he  found  a  great 
festival  in  honor  of  his  art  and  of  his  name,  but  could  not 
identify  himself  and  was  cast  out  as  an  impostor. 
"Jubal's  fame  and  art  filled  all  the  sky,  while  Jubal 
lonely  laid  him  down  to  die,"  supremely  happy  in  the 
thought  that  he  had  done  the  race  a  great  service.  To 
love  and  serve  man  is  far  higher  than  to  love  and  serve 
God,  for  we  can  do  nothing  for  Him  save  in  this  way 
and  He  needs  and  expects  no  help  from  us  save  this. 

480 


THE  PSYCHOLOGY  OF  DEATH 

Men  come  and  go  but  institutions  and  influence  go  on 
forever  and  those  who  start  them  share  their  mundane 
deathlessness  long  after  they  are  forgotten.  The  cup  of 
cold  water  illustrates  the  way  of  the  gentleman  or  lady 
born  and  bred,  best  attested  by  the  desire  that  others  be 
happy  and  not  that  they  themselves  shine,  be  aggran- 
dized, or  have  pleasure.  This  is  the  most  ideal  conduct 
and  appeals  most  strongly  of  all  things  to  the  two  great 
and  ultimate  standards  of  conduct,  namely,  honor  and 
an  approving  conscience.  And  as  we  achieve  this  we 
belong  to  the  order  of  the  immortals  and  have  triumphed 
over  death.  Desjardins,  the  founder  of  the  order  of  the 
new  life,  said  in  substance,  "We  are  never  so  impelled  to 
snap  our  fingers  in  the  face  of  death,  to  despise  all  its 
pomp  and  horror,  and  to  defy  him  to  do  his  worst  to  body 
and  soul,  as  when  we  have  just  performed  some  sucfi  act 
of  pure  but  passionate  duty  or  kindness."  Then  only  can 
we  truly  feel  that  "no  evil  can  befall  a  good  man  living  or 
dead"  and  that  the  cosmos  is  moral  to  the  core. 

III.  The  third  killer  of  the  death-fear  is  children  and 
posterity.  To  die  childless,  knowing  that  our  heredity 
that  began  with  the  amoeba  and  came  down  to  us  in  an 
unbroken  line  dies,  sharpens  the  sting  of  death ;  while,  on 
the  other  hand,  to  have  many  well  born  and  well  reared 
children  to  rise  up  and  call  us  blessed  is  one  of  the  best 
antidotes  to  its  baleful  psychic  virus.  As  every  one 
knows,  every  creature,  man  included,  lives  about  as  long 
after  the  maximum  power  to  propagate  as  his  offspring 
requires  to  become  mature,  so  that  the  prolongation  of 
the  period  of  immaturity  means  the  prolongation  of  old 
age.  Our  foremost  duty  is  to  transmit  the  sacred  torch 
of  life  undimmed,  to  give  the  maximal  momentum  and 
right  direction  to  the  nature  and  nurture  of  offspring  and 
to  bring  rising  generations  to  their  full  maturity — that 
is  the  highest  criterion  of  an  ever  rising  nation,  including 
civilization  itself.  The  true  parent  lives  not  only  in  and 
481 


SENESCENCE 

for  the  children  but  is  the  ancestor  of  their  souls  as  well 
as  of  their  bodies  and  even  his  belief  in  a  future  life  is  a 
good  or  bad  thing  according  as  it  affects  this.  We  feel 
this  life  incomplete,  unfinished,  and  in  need  of  a  supple- 
ment because  its  possibilities  are  as  yet  unrealized.  But 
we  feel  all  this  so  much  the  less  if  we  have  children,  while 
the  dread  of  the  inevitable  hour  becomes  that  of  a  kind  of 
second  or  dual  death  for  the  childless  because  not  only 
they  but  their  line  die  in  them.  Yet,  on  the  other  hand, 
they  have  less  ties  and  so  less  to  lose,  even  though  they 
may  feel  that  they  have,  in  a  sense,  lived  in  vain.  What 
parent  was  ever  so  world-weary,  so  strong  a  believer  in 
postmortem  joy,  that  he  would  not  rather  live  on  here 
and  see  his  children's  children  thrive  than  go  on  hence  to 
any  conceivable  future  state?  Those  who  leave  off- 
spring have  had  less  time  to  develop  morbid  fears  of 
Lethe's  waters  and  if  they  expect  to  enter  a  great  peace 
beyond,  they  often  find  their  chief  joy  in  contemplating 
the  fruits  of  their  loins  on  earth.  We  have  seen  how  the 
death  thought  begins  with  the  life  of  sex  and  when  the 
latter,  if  it  has  been  normal  and  happy,  comes  to  an  end, 
death  has  already  begun  and  we  are  advancing  deeper 
into  the  shades  of  the  dark  valley,  so  that  there  is  already 
less  to  lose.  Thus  the  death  of  the  aged  is  less  tragic  and 
less  inconsolable;  and,  what  is  far  more  important,  nor- 
mal and  cultured  souls  think  and  care  progressively  less 
about  another  life. 

IV.  As  for  the  good  old  doctrine  of  personal  immor- 
tality, we  cannot  yet  escape  the  great  law  that  the  next 
life  is  compensatory.  If  men  are  wretched  here,  the 
future  becomes  a  refuge  and  grows  not  only  actual  but 
attractive;  while,  conversely,  if  this  life  is  rich  and 
abounding,  the  next  tends  to  fade.  No  Christian  age 
was  ever  so  heedless  of  the  latter  as  our  own.  For  most 
intelligent,  prosperous  women,  and  especially  men,  it  has 
lapsed  to  little  more  than  a  mere  convention  or  trope  or 
482 


THE  PSYCHOLOGY  OF  DEATH 

fetish  of  an  effete  orthodoxy,  and  hell  is  at  most  only  a 
nightmare  of  the  past,  a  childish  phantom.  Our  actual 
modus  vivendi  is  as  if  another  life  did  not  exist  and  death 
were  the  end.  No  priestcraft  can  longer  make  men  content 
with  misery  here  in  the  hope  of  compensation  hereafter. 
All  make  the  most  and  best  of  this  life  as  if  it  were  all 
they  were  sure  of  and  the  motto  of  most  believers  is, 
"One  life  at  a  time  and  this  one  now."  Only  in  a  kind 
of  secondary  falsetto  Sunday  consciousness  do  their 
thoughts  turn  to  the  future  and  does  a  flickering  hope 
that  death  is  not  the  end  appear.  Extinction  is  black  by 
contrast  in  proportion  as  life  is  bright,  happy,  and  ab- 
sorbing, so  that  the  death  dread  is  in  some  respects  grow- 
ing as  our  life  becomes  richer,  while  it  is  at  the  same  time 
being  more  and  more  banished  from  consciousness.  The 
chief  attractiveness  it  now  has  is  that  it  brings  rest  and 
peace,  for  our  tropes  of  it  are  more  and  more  borrowed 
from  sleep.  Thus  if  the  idea  of  the  negation  of  life  was 
never  so  dreadful,  there  was  never  such  diversion  from 
its  closer  envisagement.  Thus,  too,  although  suppressed, 
it  was  never  so  potent  a  factor  in  governing  conduct,  in 
improving  hygiene,  and  providing  for  our  offspring. 
Although  we  take  a  chance  at  saving  our  souls  by  church 
membership  it  is  more  and  more  bad  form  to  discuss 
such  matters.  The  real  treasure  of  the  soul  is  laid  up 
elsewhere  than  in  heaven  and  the  growing  phobia  of 
death  has  now  psychotherapies  that  are  more  and  more 
effective.  Its  power  is  far  greater  than  we  know  and 
there  are  endless  uses  to  which  it  can  yet  be  put  in  help- 
ing on  the  world's  work.  Just  as  every  pain  that  de- 
presses the  vital  spirits  a  few  points  on  the  scale  of 
euphoria,  though  they  still  remain  far  above  zero,  in- 
clines to  death,  so  when  life  is  at  its  optimum  or  flood- 
tide  man  is  wonderfully  immune  and  recuperative  in 
body  and  soul  and  the  higher  up  the  euphoric  scale  we 
live,  the  more  difficult  it  is  to  fear  or  even  think  of  death. 

483 


SENESCENCE 

Thus  every  legitimate  fear  of  death  is  in  a  sense  a  life- 
preserver  and  -prolonger.  Our  business  is  to  live  and 
not  to  die,  to  keep  at  the  very  top  of  our  condition  and  as 
far  as  possible  from  death,  which  is  the  summum  malum. 

As  to  the  relation  of  these  four  immortalities,  nominal, 
influential,  plasmal,  and  orthodox,  to  each  other,  genet- 
icism  and  the  revelations  of  the  dynamism  of  the  folk- 
soul  have  shed  much  new  light.  This  may  be  sum- 
marized in  the  statement  that  each  of  them  is  correlated 
with  all  the  others.  Even  he  who  is  chiefly  intent  on 
perpetuating  his  name  is  gratifying  the  deep  instinct  of 
transcending  the  limits  of  his  own  personal  life  and  to 
know  that  he  is  remembered  is  not  without  consoling 
power  even  in  the  loss  of  property  or  if  the  conviction 
arises  that  death  means  extinction;  while,  conversely, 
the  prospect  of  death  in  utter  obscurity  and  of  being 
completely  forgotten  tends  to  reinforce  any  or  all  of  the 
other  immortalities.  Were  we  to  rehabilitate  hell  in  a 
modern  sense,  one  of  its  horrors  would  be  a  sentence  of 
summary  oblivion  even  to  our  friends:  "Let  his  name 
be  forever  taboo  from  mention  or  even  from  memory." 
Of  course,  we  shall  all  sooner  or  later  fall  under  this 
sentence  despite  all  our  pathetic  efforts  to  leave  durable 
names  behind. 

As  to  anonymous  influence,  we  are  all  sure  of  it  to  a 
degree,  for  the  world  we  are  born  into  is  made  by  those 
who  preceded  us  and  we  help  to  shape  the  future.  In 
the  social  field  we  have  endless  illustrations  of  a  service 
that  involves  more  or  less  emulation.  The  case  in  point 
is  a  woman  I  knew  who,  having  lived  a  most  disinter- 
ested and  self-sacrificing  life,  when  told  that  God  would 
reward  her  in  the  next  world  replied  that  she  had  never 
had  either  conviction  or  interest  about  another  life  but 
had  been  too  busy  doing  good  to  think  about  it.  If  an- 
other life  was  in  the  order  of  things,  all  would  be  well, 
but  if  annihilation  were  in  store,  that,  too,  would  be 

484 


THE  PSYCHOLOGY  OF  DEATH 

just  as  welcome,  for  she  had  found  her  pay  in  the  satis- 
faction that  each  day's  work  brought.  She  had  no  chil- 
dren and  wanted  no  outer  recognition  but  was  content 
that  her  good  deeds  registered  in  others'  lives  would  fol- 
low her  and  nothing  else  really  mattered  in  her  scheme 
of  life.  The  point  is  that  in  any  other  ages  or  environ- 
ments the  same  instinct  to  enlarge  life  might  have  found 
expression  in  either  of  the  other  forms.  Some  even 
commit  colossal  crimes  from  a  perverted  form  of 
Geltung's  propensity.  Because  they  cannot  be  potent  for 
good  they  make  themselves  so  for  evil.  Anonymity  is 
often  a  passion  and  finds  outcrops  not  only  in  religion 
and  philosophy  but  also  in  science.  Indeed,  very  much 
of  our  civilization  is  composed  of  innumerable  influences 
originated  by  those  whose  names  no  history  or  Act  a 
Sanctorum  have  preserved  and  are  products  of  this 
deep  basal  trend  in  the  human  soul. 

As  to  plasmal  immortality,  who  knows  how  much  of 
all  the  good  done  in  the  world,  if  traced  to  its  genetic 
roots,  comes  straight  from  the  original  momentum  of  the 
instinct  to  make  the  world  better  for  posterity?  To  be 
sure,  many  of  them  are  now  broken  erratic  trends,  for- 
getful of  their  source,  which  is  really  a  nest-building 
instinct  so  irradiated  and  sublimated  as  to  have  lost  orien- 
tation toward  both  its  origin  and  goal.  The  first  construc- 
tions in  the  world  were  nidifications.  The  first  animal 
societies  were  stirpicultural.  The  primal  examples  of  self- 
sacrifice  were  for  the  young.  Everything  for  the  world  is 
good  that  squares  with  the  functions  of  parenthood 
broadly  conceived,  and  all  is  bad  that  contravenes  it.  Psy- 
chotherapy is  slowly  leading  us  to  the  astonishingly  new 
insight  that  aberrations  of  the  life-transmitting,  young- 
rearing  propensities  constitute  very  many  if  not  most  of 
our  mental  abnormalities  and  that  the  rectification  of 
these  functions  has  marvelous  therapeutic  efficiency. 
The  race  is  immortal,  at  least  back  to  the  first  protozoan 

485 


SENESCENCE 

and  indeed  infinitely  beyond.  And  so,  in  the  future,  our 
race  and  it  only  is  immortal  to  the  cosmic  end.  If  we  are 
tips  of  the  twigs  of  a  vast  buried  tree,  these  twigs  may 
become  themselves  roots  of  a  yet  greater  one  and  even  a 
true  superman  may  yet  be  born  in  the  line  of  any  of  us. 
Thus,  perhaps  all  the  other  immortalities  have  their 
dynamogeny  in  the  instincts  of  parenthood. 

As  to  the  venerable  belief  in  personal  immortality,  it 
was  of  course  selfishness  transcendentalized  so  as  to  sub- 
ordinate every  other  goal  in  life  to  that  of  insuring  our 
own  happiness  in  a  postmortem  world.  And  we  have 
to-day  only  contempt  for  the  squalid  ascetic  who  made 
his  life  miserable  with  the  prime  end  of  saving  his  own 
soul.  But  this  crude  doctrine  now  stands  forth  in  a  very 
new  light,  for  psychology  shows  it  to  have  been  an  ugly 
cyst  or  cast  that  enclosed  and  sheltered  through  hard 
dark  ages  a  precious  and  beauteous  thing  now  just 
emerging.  Its  content,  as  now  revealed  by  analysis,  is 
really  man's  ineluctable  conviction  that  his  own  life  was 
insignificant  compared  with  its  larger  meanings.  Its 
real  lesson  is  the  subordination  of  the  individual  to  the 
greater  whole  toward  which  it  gave  him  a  correct  Ein- 
stellung.  The  close  attachment  of  this  doctrine  to  the 
ego  was  incorrect,  for  the  self  is  only  a  trope  or  metaphor 
of  the  race,  but  even  this  was  necessary  at  an  earlier 
stage  of  race  pedagogy.  The  transcendentality  ascribed 
to  a  self  freed  from  the  body  was  inevitable  because  that 
was  the  only  symbol  by  which  the  greater  life  of  the  race 
could  be  described  or  comprehended.  This  belief  stored 
up  and  conserved  the  psychic  promise  and  potency  that  is 
now  again  flowing  over  by  transfer  to  the  other  out- 
crops of  the  immortality  instinct.  It  did  not  say  what  it 
meant  but  was  a  pragmatic  masterpiece,  like  so  many 
great  creations  of  the  folksoul.  From  the  soul  of  the 
.  race  it  went  straight  home  to  that  of  the  individual  and 
if  it  overstressed  individuation  for  a  time,  that,  too,  was 

486 


THE  PSYCHOLOGY  OF  DEATH 

at  first  needful.  Had  man  not  so  long  or  so  inevitably 
believed  in  the  great  work  of  saving  souls  for  the  next 
world,  he  would  now  be  less  effective  in  saving  them 
from  the  evils  of  this  world.  Had  he  not  so  cherished 
the  conviction  of  a  future  heaven,  he  would  have  lost 
much  of  the  very  energy  of  his  soul,  which  now  strives 
to  transform  this  world  into  a  paradise  and  to  populate 
it  well.  Thus  we  have  here  a  great  field  in  which  the 
laws  of  the  transposition  of  psychic  trends  into  their 
kinetic  equivalents,  with  very  many  different  forms  but 
with  persistence  of  identical  content,  are  abundantly 
shown.  Man's  instinct  has  always  been  right  and  only 
his  more  superficial  conscious  interpretations  of  it 
wrong. 

Excess  or  defect  of  either  of  at  least  the  first  three 
immortalities  hypertrophies  or  dwarfs  the  others.  The 
doctrine  of  conscious  personal  survival  was  not  only 
developed  in  unconscious  conformity  to  this  principle  but 
has  an  even  more  important  pedagogic  role  for  the  young 
than  we  had  hitherto  supposed.  It  is  a  pragmatic,  ar- 
tistic, and  in  no  sense  a  scientific  fact.  It  utterly  fails 
before  the  criteria  of  reason  but  it  has  worked  far  better 
results  than  it  could  have  done  had  these  requirements 
been  alone  regarded.  It  should  not  only  be  inculcated  in 
the  young  but  has  immense  therapeutic  value  and  to 
doubt  this  is  only  another  side  illustration  of  the  fact  that 
cultivated  adults  have,  the  world  over  and  particularly 
in  our  country,  unprecedentedly  lost  touch  with  youth. 
Wherever  the  instincts  of  parenthood  have  not  degener- 
ated, it  must  be  clear  that  belief  in  future  personal 
rewards  and  punishments  is  a  wholesome  regulative  of 
the  lives  of  the  young  at  a  stage  when  feeling  and  im- 
pulse are  at  their  strongest  and  before  reason  is  mature. 

V.  But  there  is  a  fifth  form  of  immortality  concept 
somewhat  more  apart  and  uncorrelated  with  the  others 
because  newer  and  which  comes  from  the  lure  of  the  in- 
487 


SENESCENCE 

finitesimal  elements  which  science  now  finds  at  the  basis 
of  the  universe.  What  Dalton  called  atoms  are  now  known 
to  be  planetary  systems  of  unimaginably  minute  cor- 
puscles, one  thousandth  the  mass  of  an  atom  of  hydro- 
gen and,  if  they  are  solely  electrical,  "their  size  must  be 
one  millionth  of  the  linear  dimensions  of  an  atom,"  or 
relatively  as  a  period  on  the  printed  page  is  to  a  large 
theater.  Their  groupings  constitute  the  chemical  ele- 
ments, so  that  matter  is  dynamic  to  a  degree  we  cannot 
conceive ;  and  if  so-called  inorganic  matter  were  proven 
to  contain  germs  of  man  and  mind,  this  would  add  but 
little  to  the  new  marvel  of  it.  Matter  is  so  active  and 
subtle  that  the  modern  conceptions  of  it  that  have  come 
from  the  study  of  radium  make  us  feel  that  in  a  sense  it 
is  more  spiritual  than  we  have  ever  conceived  spirit  itself 
to  be.  In  this  new  world,  which  may  be  homogeneous 
with  mind,  there  is  nothing  like  death  anywhere  to  be 
found,  and  there  is  an  unbroken  gradation  from  the  cor- 
porative unity  of  electrons  in  an  atom  up  to  the  aggre- 
gations of  man  in  society — and  some  think  further  still. 
On  this  view  death  is  not  only  non-existent  but  incon- 
ceivable. True,  more  complex  aggregations  are  reduced 
to  simpler,  more  transient  to  more  permanent  ones  by 
it,  but  matter  is  not  only  not  dead  but  more  intensely 
active  than  mind,  so  that  the  student  of  the  ultimate  con- 
stitution of  matter  and  the  persistence  of  energy  is  in  a 
sense  studying  immortality,  for  this  is  the  basis  from 
which  all  orders  of  animal  nature  arose  and  into  which 
they  will  all  be  resolved. 

Thus  we  are  told  that  the  new  physics  and  chemistry 
are  really  investigating  death  and  regeneration.  Our 
brains  have  little  sense  of  the  marvelous  and  lawful 
processes  that  underlie  all  their  activities.  While  we 
have  deemed  evolution  upward,  there  is  another  sense 
in  which  it  is  a  fall  or  a  series  of  departures  from  a  more 
durable  and  elemental  state,  so  that  the  gain  is  not  all 
488 


THE  PSYCHOLOGY  OF  DEATH 

one  way  and  catabolism  has  its  own  attractions.  If  our 
lives  affect  these  more  permanent  electrons,  this  is  sur- 
vival and  our  ego  is  only  part  of  a  larger  continuum  and 
is  without  end  or  beginning,  although  inconceivably 
changed.  The  disintegration  of  our  elements  is  the 
harvest-home  back  to  the  cosmos  from  which  we  arose 
and  may  involve  increase,  not  decrease,  to  the  sum  total 
of  good.  This  unselfing  or  "fusing  with  all  we  flow 
from"  is  the  direction  in  which  love,  whether  of  man, 
woman,  animals,  or  nature  itself,  as  well  as  subordina- 
tion of  self  to  others  and  the  world,  inclines  us.  Thus 
the  conscious  soul  of  man  is  swept  by  tides  of  which  our 
poor  psychology  as  yet  knows  but  little.  Should  such  a 
conception  of  the  world  become  general,  it  could  still 
use  many  of  our  religious  phrases,  litanies,  and  symbols, 
but  they  would  be  inundated  with  fresh  meanings. 

Jean  Finot's  book  16  is  marvelously  learned,  his  view 
is  unique,  and  his  style  fascinating.  It  rapidly  passed 
through  fourteen  editions  and  was  translated  into  many 
languages.  He  has  almost  nothing  to  say  of  the  soul,  so 
that  his  volume  might  be  entitled  The  Immortality  of  the 
Body,  or  Death,  the  Great  Illusion.  He  is  bitter  against 
theologians  for  having  made  death  such  an  all-dominat- 
ing fear  fetish  in  the  world.  Tolstoi  feared  death  all  his 
life  and  writes,  "Nothing  is  worse  than  death,  and  when 
we  consider  that  it  is  the  inevitable  end  of  all  which  lives, 
we  must  also  recognize  that  nothing  is  worse  than  life." 
We  are  told  that  the  dread  of  it  poisoned  the  life  of 
Daudet  and  that  Zola  trembled  before  the  thought, 
"which  obsessed  him  and  caused  him  nightmares  and 
insomnia."  Renan  says,  "We  may  sacrifice  all  to  truth 
and  good,  which  are  the  ends  of  life,  and  when  we  have 
done  say,  'Following  the  call  of  this  interior  siren  we 

w  The  Philosophy  of  Long  Life,  Tr.  from  the  French  by  Harry  Roberts, 
1903,  305  PP- 

489 


SENESCENCE 

have  reached  the  turn  where  the  rewards  should  lie.  Oh, 
dreadful  consoler,  there  is  none!'  The  philosophy  which 
promised  us  the  secret  of  death  stammers  excuses." 
Finot  says,  "A  study  of  the  evolution  of  death  in  the 
literature  of  the  past  and  to-day  would  become  almost  a 
history  of  literature  itself."  "The  meditations  of  the 
fathers  of  the  church  and  the  monks  of  the  Middle  Ages 
would  shine  particularly  in  this  concert  of  vociferations 
against  death  ('If  the  slightest  wound  made  on  one  finger 
can  cause  so  great  a  pain,  what  a  horrible  torture  must  be 
death,  which  is  the  corruption  or  dissolution  of  the  entire 
body').  We  can  look  fixedly  neither  at  the  sun  nor  at 
death."  Mme.  de  Sevigne  says,  "I  am  swallowed  up  in 
the  thoughts  of  death  and  find  it  so  terrible  that  I  hate  life 
more  because  it  leads  there."  It  is  no  great  consolation 
to  say  with  Renan,  "We  shall  live  by  the  trace  which  each 
of  us  leaves  upon  the  bosom  of  the  infinite."  "All  that 
lives  is  simply  preparing  for  death."  Belief  in  the  per- 
durability  of  the  soul  is  an  alterative  or  placation,  a 
mirage.  Only  Confucianism  and  Taoism,  if  they  had 
remained  faithful  to  the  teachings  of  their  creators, 
would  close  to  their  initiates  all  possibilities  of  an  after 
life;  but  they  did  not  remain  faithful.  Even  Luther  at 
the  beginning  of  his  campaign  against  Rome  classed  the 
dogma  of  immortality  of  the  soul  as  amongst  "the  mon- 
strous fables  which  are  part  of  the  Roman  dung  heap," 
although  he  later  became  reconciled  to  it. 

The  very  fear  of  death  has  killed  many.  "Sick  per- 
sons who  gather  from  their  doctor  a  presentiment  of 
their  term  usually  die  before  reaching  it."  The  Western 
world  should  take  heart  from  the  millions  of  Buddhists 
who  view  the  prospect  of  death  with  enchantment.  For 
subjective  idealists  like  Berkeley,  who  tell  us  that  we  can 
really  know  nothing  of  the  external  world,  death  only 
deprives  us  of  our  conceptions  and  we  may  really  take 
consolation  in  the  fact  that  our  individuality  is  composed 

490 


THE  PSYCHOLOGY  OF  DEATH 

of  a  whole  hierarchy  of  more  or  less  independent  cen- 
ters, each  of  them  made  up  of  more  complex  units,  until 
our  ideas  of  immortality  merge  with  those  of  the  con- 
servation of  energy. 

Finot's  own  views  begin  with  his  conception  of  "life 
in  the  coffin."  "The  underground  existence  of  our  body 
is  far  more  animated  than  that  which  is  led  above  the 
earth."  "The  fathers  of  some  few  human  beings  upon 
the  earth,  we  become  the  fathers  of  myriads  of  beings 
within  its  depths,"  and  man  perhaps  gives  more  pleasure 
to  his  grave  companions  than  he  ever  enjoyed.  He  speci- 
fies nine  species  of  insects,  mostly  strikingly  colored  flies 
and  coleoptera,  which  in  regular  order,  one  after  an- 
other, live  upon  and  copulate,  lay  their  eggs  and  rear 
their  maggots  in  corpses  that  are  paradises  to  them,  and 
he  praises  the  work  of  Francisco  Redi  who  gave  us  "the 
admirable  science  of  the  entymology  of  graves,"  which 
now  takes  the  place  of  the  old  ideas  of  Tartarus  and  the 
Elysian  fields.  The  foods  brought  to  the  tomb  and 
frankly  meant  for  the  dead,  who  were  often  conceived  as 
hungry,  were  really  consumed  by  the  "worms"  that 
devour  us.  He  tells  us  of  a  young  woman  caught  singing 
at  a  grave  who,  seeing  that  she  was  observed,  remarked, 
"My  mother  liked  the  Casta  Diva."  The  Greeks  cer- 
tainly did  not  believe  that  those  beneath  the  earth  were 
quite  quit  of  existence  and  perhaps  the  first  religion  was 
that  of  the  grave  or  tomb,  which  was  a  factor  in  the  birth 
of  patriotism.  The  tomb  is  democratic  because  all  bodies 
suffer  exactly  the  same  fate  if  exposed  alike  to  the  ele- 
ments. We  may  really  be  interested  in  "our  offspring" 
in  the  grave,  for  they,  at  least  to  biologists,  have  more 
interest  than  do  the  poetic  conceptions  that  we  become 
flowers,  trees,  or  drifting  clouds.  We  may  thus  "facili- 
tate the  body's  immortal  diffusion  into  immortal  nature." 

Indeed,  each  of  the  thirty  trillion  cells  of  our  body  has 
its  own  partial  elemental  life  and,  while  we  live,  these 
491 


SENESCENCE 

partake  in  the  general  life  of  the  common  wealth.  Each 
has  to  eliminate  waste,  ingest  food,  and  their  energy  is 
such  that  "we  should  need  a  force  of  several  hundred 
thousand  horsepower  to  kill  simultaneously"  and  in- 
stantly all  these  cells.  Even  molecules  have  infinitely 
little  lives,  each  after  its  own  fashion.  The  chemist's 
view  of  even  putrefaction,  which  appeals  so  repulsively 
to  one  of  our  senses,  makes  it  interesting.  Thus  the  ele- 
ments of  our  body  carry  on  after  what  we  call  death,  for 
life  dwells  in  each  cell  and  even  molecule.  The  very  first 
germ  was  immortal.  True,  we  cannot  analyze  the  con- 
sciousness of  a  cell,  if  it  has  one.  Back  of  all  this  there 
is  the  life  of  inanimate  nature.  Again,  many  of  the 
organs  and  elements  of  our  body  continue  to  live  and 
grow,  if  sufficiently  nourished,  after  the  death  of  the 
body  as  a  whole,  though  a  part  does  not  have  the  power, 
as  in  some  animals,  of  regenerating  the  whole.  The 
heart  has  been  revived  after  thirty  hours  of  death.  Bits 
of  skin  have  been  removed  and  preserved  and  grafted 
on  to  other  bodies  six  months  after  detachment  and  this 
process  might  go  on  indefinitely,  the  same  skin  being 
transferred  for  generations  to  new  bodies.  True,  organs, 
like  cells,  lose  their  subordination  at  what  we  call  death." 
At  this  point  Finot  introduces  a  very  long  argument 
against  cremation  because  it  interferes  with  all  these 
processes.  He  seems  to  have  a  rancor  against  it  that  is 
somewhat  like  that  of  the  Western  believer  in  personal 
immortality  against  Oriental  pantheism,  which  holds 
that  the  soul  melts  into  the  universe  like  a  drop  into  the 
ocean.  He  finds  great  comfort  in  the  scientific  phenom- 
ena, which  he  resumes  as  "the  life  of  so-called  inanimate 
matter/'  which,  we  are  coming  to  realize,  is  by  no  means 
dead.  Indeed,  molecules  lead  an  intensely  active  life, 
changing  their  place,  perhaps  vibrating,  traveling,  group- 

"  See  Chapter  VI. 

492 


THE  PSYCHOLOGY  OF  DEATH 

ing  themselves  in  very  many  different  ways,  so  that 
metals  have  a  kind  of  physiology  and  even  therapy  of 
their  own.  Perhaps,  indeed,  crystallized  matter  repre- 
sents the  most  perfect  and  stable  arrangement  to  which 
the  particles  of  the  body  are  susceptible.  Thermody- 
namics shows  us  that  motion  and  heat  are  related  in 
metals  as  in  our  bodies.  Metals  suffer  fatigue  and 
recuperate  from  rest,  as  Bose  has  shown.  Perhaps  even 
the  soul  of  life  is  here  and  we  are  just  beginning  to  know 
the  powers  of  ferments,  which  seem  on  the  borderline 
between  the  organic  and  inorganic.  Both  are  subject  to 
evolution. 

Again,  there  is  no  sharp  line  between  animal  and 
vegetable  life.  Protoplasms  are  as  different  or  must  be 
so  as  individuals.  Both  have  variability.  Both  the  cab- 
bage and  the  rat,  as  standard  biological  experiments 
show,  breathe.  Plants  are  affected  by  narcotics.  Sick 
vegetables  respond  to  some  of  the  same  medicaments 
that  animals  do,  while  some  actually  have  a  sensorium. 
Philosophers  like  Descartes  have  tried  to  break  down  all 
the  identities  between  man  and  animals  and  give  the 
former  a  unique  place  in  the  universe.  Fechner,  who 
believed  plants  besouled,  and  even  Haeckel  knew  better, 
although  Wundt  insisted  to  the  last  that  "all  psychic 
activity  is  conscious."  The  unconscious,  which  compar- 
ative psychology  must  admit,  opens  the  door  downward 
toward  the  very  dawn  of  life,  so  that  perhaps  even  uni- 
cellular organisms  have  elemental  souls.  Very  many  of 
the  earlier  philosophers,  when  human  thought  was  fresh 
and  untrammeled  by  tradition,  insisted  on  the  unity  of 
life  and  mind.  For  a  long  period  animals  were  thought 
to  be  moral  beings  and  courts  were  held  in  which  they 
were  tried.  Indeed,  we  may  conclude  that  "a  living 
being  is  always  living"  and  back  of  this  life  merges  by 
imperceptible  gradations  into  the  larger  life  of  the  cos- 
mos. 

493 


SENESCENCE 

All  religion,  says  Finot,  is  based  on  a  belief  in  a  soul 
independent  of  the  body  and  while  so  many  Western 
philosophers  have  insisted  on  a  perdurable  and  even 
immaterial  personality,  there  has  always  been  a  back- 
ground of  thought  repressed  by  current  opinion  to  the 
contrary  view,  till  we  have  developed  a  kind  of  "senti- 
ment of  the  end."  In  point  of  fact,  those  near  death  have 
first  a  feeling  of  beatitude,  then  complete  insensibility  to 
the  outer  world  and  to  pain,  and  lastly  great  rapidity  of 
thought,  so  that  dying  is  a  kind  of  beatitude.  Finot 
thinks  modern  biology  by  its  experiments,  not  on  spon- 
taneous generation  but  on  the  control  of  fertilization, 
has  gone  some  way  toward  realizing  the  goal  of  the 
alchemists,  which  was  to  create  homunculi ;  and  he  won- 
ders whether  man  may  not  sometime  be  thus  able  to  con- 
trol the  very  sources  of  life. 

Alchemy,  which  for  centuries  was  the  mystic  philos- 
ophy of  the  wise  but  has  seemed  to  modern  minds  only  a 
mass  of  felted  symbols  that  could  never  be  resolved  ex- 
cept in  the  new  light  shed  upon  it  by  the  studies  of  A.  E. 
Hitchcock,  Silberer,  and  others,  represents  in  one  of  its 
aspects  a  unique  trend  of  the  quest  for  immortality.  The 
lower  alchemist  strove  to  reduce  the  baser  metals  back  to 
a  common  element,  menstruum,  or  materia  prima,  for 
which  there  were  fifty  mythological  expressions,  and 
then  and  there  to  transmute  them  into  the  purest  and  the 
most  precious  of  all  metals,  gold.  The  later  higher  al- 
chemy left  all  this  behind  and  strove  to  bring  not  only 
life  but  the  homunculus  itself  out  of  various  rotting 
putridities  or  out  of  decomposition  backward  and  down- 
ward to  evolve  something  endowed  with  exceptional 
vitality.  Near  this  devolutive  pole  lie  the  deep  sources 
of  creative  energy,  the  antaeus  touch  of  which  brings 
regeneration.  So  regression  to  the  "within"  causes  the 
soul  to  arise  from  the  body  and  the  spirit  from  the  soul. 
It  is  like  the  transmutation  of  experience  into  heredity 

494 


THE  PSYCHOLOGY  OF  DEATH 

or  individuality  reinforcing  itself  by  contact  with  the 
mighty  spirit  of  the  race.  The  personal  is  united  with 
the  world's  will  or  with  that  of  God  and  is  transmuted 
into  it.  Symbols  are  always  a  product  of  "apperceptive 
insufficiency"  but  the  higher  anagogic  meaning  of  many 
of  them  in  the  hermetic  field  is  that  askesis,  sacrifice,  the 
death  of  egoism,  and  renunciation  lead  to  the  great 
treasure,  the  new  light,  self-impregnation  with  Pneuma, 
a  new  birth,  joy,  the  summum  bonum,  etc.  To  some 
alchemists  this  goal  was  like  that  of  the  Yogi  cult,  de- 
personalization  if  not  annihilation,  while  to  others  it  was 
more  like  a  distillation  of  a  quintessential  supersoul  from 
its  sarcous  base,  as  mercury  and  even  lead  are  trans- 
muted into  gold.  Palingenesis  is  the  purpose  not  only 
of  experimentation  but  of  the  prayer  and  meditation  that 
must  precede  it.  In  the  sex  symbolisms  the  subject 
fuses  with  the  object  as  the  male  and  female  principle 
unite  in  conjugation.  Old  age  is  regression  or  retreat 
toward  the  fountain  heads  of  life  and  the  new  life  may 
be  formed  within  the  old  body  before  its  collapse,  so  that 
there  is  no  break  of  either  conscious  or  physical  con- 
tinuity. Where  and  when  there  is  most  death,  there  is 
also  most  life,  for  the  two  are  true  recip  :ocals. 

But  the  alchemists  did  not  make  gold  nor  evolve  an 
homunculus  nor  achieve  even  spontaneous  generation 
according  to  our  criteria.  Diligently  as  they  sought  for 
them,  they  never  found  the  philosopher's  stone,  tKe 
fountain  of  youth,  or  the  elixir  vita.  Active  as  were 
their  immortal  longings  and  intricate  as  were  their 
products,  they  were  all  abortive.  They  groped  toward 
chemistry  and  metallurgy  and  these  came  in  due  time, 
although  they  were  no  more  products  of  it  than  the  mod- 
ern building  trades  are  of  freemasonry.  But  their  quest 
for  a  transmortal  life  neither  achieved  nor  was  followed 
by  any  after  results  that  seem  to  us  to  be  of  value. 

Modern  astronomy  tells  us  that  the  stellar  universe 

495 


SENESCENCE 

is  at  least  250,000  light  years  in  diameter,  so  that  if  one 
of  the  remoter  stars  went  out  we  should  not  know  it  for 
that  number  of  years.  The  extensions  outside  the  range 
of  even  our  Euclidean  axioms  which  we  now  know  were 
only  provisional  and  where  time  is  only  a  fourth  dimen- 
sion of  space  (Einstein);  suns  a  million  times  larger 
than  ours;  thousands  of  millions  of  celestial  bodies  in 
all  stages  of  evolution  and  devolution,  yet  all  composed 
of  nearly  the  same  chemical  elements  as  our  tiny  planet 
and  all  following  the  same  laws  of  gravity,  light,  heat, 
the  conservation  of  energy  through  all  its  transforma- 
tions so  that  none  of  it  is  ever  or  anywhere  lost,  with 
illustrations  of  every  stage  of  planetary  development 
and  dissolution,  some  of  them  probably  evolving  life  and 
creatures  far  higher  than  man: — it  is  out  of  this  uni- 
verse that  our  world  and  we  came  and  back  into  it  we 
shall  both  be  resolved  sooner  or  later.  As  we  advance 
in  life  we  turn  our  backs  to  all  this  but  when  the  retreat 
begins  we  face  the  stupendous  whole  of  it  again  and 
death  is  freedom  from  the  progressive  limitations  in- 
volved in  individuation  and  a  return  home  to  the  One 
and  All.  It  is  restoration,  resumption,  emancipation, 
diffusion,  reversion,  and  all  worlds  and  systems  as  well 
as  men  are  thus  destined  to  die  of  old  age,  perhaps  by 
collision  or  other  accident,  since  time  is  as  boundless  as 
space  and  the  history  of  our  solar  system  is  but  a  single 
tick  of  the  cosmic  clock-work  which  we  know  is  always 
running  down  even  though  it  may  have  the  power  of 
eternally  winding  itself  up  again.  If  "our  hearts  like 
muffled  drums  are  beating  funeral  marches  to  the 
grave/'  so  is  also  the  heart  of  the  universe.  As  we  "join 
the  majority"  when  we  die,  so  do  suns  that  become 
extinct  and  those  we  see  with  the  strongest  telescope 
may  be  but  a  handful  compared  to  those  that  within  its 
range  have  suffered  "entropy."  Thus  the  true  death 
thought  is  the  transcender  of  all  horizons  and  its  muse 
496 


THE  PSYCHOLOGY  OF  DEATH 

points  us  straight  to  infinity  as  our  goal.  Along  with 
this  there  is  a  deep  conviction  that  there  is  no  void  or 
vacuum  but  that  even  though  the  existence  of  universal 
ether  is  now  doubted  by  certain  experts  the  cosmos  is 
somehow  a  plenum  full  to  repletion  of  being  as  it  is  of 
energy  and  teeming  with  the  possibilities  of  even  life 
far  richer  and  more  abundant  than  we  can  conceive. 
Thus  we  see  again  that  personality  is  arrest,  exclusion 
from  all  this,  which  ceases  at  death  when  we  r center  the 
great  current  that  sweeps  onward  all  that  is.  Thus  the 
solar  system,  earth,  man,  and  finally  our  own  ego  involve 
descent  as  from  a  summum  genus  to  an  infima  species 
This  progressive  individuation  is  at  every  step  arrest 
which  death  removes  and  reverses,  so  that  the  energies 
which  during  all  our  lives  have  held  up  and  hampered  us 
by  so  many  disharmonies  and  conflicts  are  gone  forever. 
VI.  Next  come  the  noetic  theories  of  immortality. 
Gnostics,  illuminati,  mystics,  logicians  of  the  categories, 
and  all  who  seek  salvation  and  perdurability  by  the  noetic 
way  assume  that  as  the  soul  leaves  individual  things  and 
persons  and  passes  to  species,  to  genera,  and  on  to  the 
abstract  and  unconditioned,  certainty  increases  until  it 
tends  to  become  cataleptic  in  the  old  Stoic  sense.  The 
ultimate  goal  is  pure  absolute  being,  knowledge  of  which 
brings  ecstasy,  love  of,  and  identification  with  it.  Self 
is  merged  and  lost  in  the  infinite.  Negatively  this  seems 
not  merely  death  but  annihilation.  It  should  be  regarded 
positively  as  the  great  affirmation  and  realization  of  true 
existence  and  the  proper  and  only  true  finish  and  com- 
pletion of  human  life,  the  last  stage  of  psychogenesis. 
It  is  involution,  the  at  last  fully  developed  counterpart 
and  complement  of  evolution.  To  this  the  genetic  life 
impulse  with  which  each  of  us  starts  will  take  us  if  its 
trajectory  suffers  no  arrest  and  does  not  swerve  from 
its  proper  course.  This  ontological  immortality  is  Ori- 
ental, eleatic,  and  frankly  pantheistic.  It  is  a  product  not 

497 


SENESCENCE 

only  of  old  thinkers  but  of  old  races  and  civilizations.  It 
goes  with  retirement  from  and  not  with  useful  advent 
into  the  world.  Those  who  begin  this  involution  by,  for 
example,  knowing  that  they  know,  knowing  that  they 
know  they  know,  etc.,  find  that  at  the  mathematical  point 
when  they  reach  the  center  of  the  involucre,  the  universe 
bursts  in  upon  them.  By  tracing  self -consciousness  to  its 
deepest  root  all  that  is  conscious  is  lost  in  an  unconscious 
that  is  utterly  without  bounds  or  orientation. 

The  religious  instinct  has  always  been  vastly  wiser 
than  it  knew  but  it  always  needs  reconstruction,  often 
radical  in  form.  Thus,  if  at  death  the  psyche  is  disin- 
tegrated as  much  as  the  body  is  and  the  disintegration 
goes  down  into  molecules  or  any  of  the  basal  forms  of 
energy,  death  is  not  absolute.  The  difference  is  like  that 
between  the  mountains  and  the  sea  level  when  compared 
with  that  from  the  surface  of  the  earth  to  its  center. 
Hering  and  Simon  tell  us  that  what  we  have  called 
heredity  is  really  memory.  The  world  beyond  is  like  an 
ocean  to  an  ant  accustomed  to  its  own  ant-hill  but  float- 
ing out  to  sea  on  a  straw.  The  subconscious  is  greater 
than  the  conscious  and  we  do  not  dread  this  in  sleep  and 
so  biology  is  greater  than  psychology,  just  as  folklore  is 
broader  than  psychology  or  philosophy.  We  want  to  feel 
ultimately  forces  and  powers  that  are  not  our  own,  to  be 
inundated  with  a  larger  strength,  to  fall  back  into  ever- 
lasting arms.  Thus,  back  of  Christianity  is  an  older, 
larger,  meta-Christian,  meta-human  religion  found  in 
the  love  of  nature,  and  old  men  ought  to  grow  pro- 
gressively interested  first  in  animals,  then  in  plants,  then 
in  the  inanimate  world,  with  a  view  to  the  ending  of  life 
in  a  pantheistic  absorption. 

This  view  has  had  another  great  reinforcement  of  late 

from  studies  that  originated  with  Durkheim  and  Levy- 

Briihl,  from  which  it  appears  that  back  of  primitive 

animism  there  are  always  found  traces  of  some  kind  of 

498 


THE  PSYCHOLOGY  OF  DEATH 

mana  cult,  which  is  not  unlike  that  of  Om  in  India.  Man 
is  anthropic  or  upward-gazing.  We  address  the  sky 
not  as  "our  father  in  heaven"  but  as  a  vastated  navel- 
gazing  orientation  toward  the  source  of  all  things. 
Schleiermacher,  who  conceived  religion  as  absolute  de- 
pendence and  in  his  earlier  writings  made  it  pantheistic 
at  root,  sought  to  console  a  young  widow  who  said  that 
her  whole  soul  went  out  to  her  dead  husband  and  she 
could  not  possibly  feel  that  he  would  be  resolved  back 
into  the  great  One-and-All  by  saying  that  this  should 
bring  her  no  grief  for  it  meant  merging  into  the  highest 
life  of  the  infinite  whole  and  no  longer  setting  up  for 
self — "If  he  is  now  living  in  God  and  you  love  him  eter- 
nally in  God  as  you  loved  and  knew  God  in  him,  can  you 
think  of  anything  sublimer  or  anything  more  glorious? 
Is  not  this  the  highest  end  of  love  ?"etc.  Mailander  held 
that  pantheistic  divinity  died  in  giving  birth  to  the  world 
and  that  all  its  processes  are  self-destructive,  pointing 
ultimately  to  a  Nirvana ;  that  everything  is  traveling  the 
road  to  death,  the  desire  for  which  is  really  the  universal 
motive,  so  that  we  are  unconsciously  seeking  this  kind  of 
absorptive  death  in  all  we  do  or  say.  Man's  business  is 
to  know  the  great  whole  and  thus  he  will  enjoy  the  pros- 
pect of  annihilation  and  attain  the  full  and  glorious  will 
to  die.  We  must  be  resolved  back  into  primal  energy, 
which  is  nothing  only  in  the  sense  that  it  is  too  great  to 
be  defined. 

Meyer-Denfey  urges  that  no  part  of  the  soul  can  be 
lost  any  more  than  can  any  element  of  the  body  and  that 
the  fuller  our  life  has  been  the  more  of  these  modifica- 
tions of  cosmic  matter  and  energy  does  it  effect.  Pan- 
theism has  resources  for  meeting  the  death  fear  which 
the  Western  world  knows  little  of.  It  should  also  be 
noted  that  to  the  psychologist  consolations  drawn  from 
the  persistency  of  the  elements  of  our  body  in  the  above 
sense  are  related  to  world-soul  theories  merely  by  am- 

499 


SENESCENCE 

bivalent  variance.  Psychogenetically  there  is  little  dif- 
ference between  concepts  of  absolute  mind  back  of  all 
conscious  and  sentient  beings  and  those  of  preexisting 
energy,  stress,  nebulae,  or  any  other  mother-lye  of  the 
universe.  The  Schiller- James  view  is  that  matter  limits 
the  expression  of  the  absolute  mind  back  of  all.  Our 
brain  is  a  thin  place  in  the  veil  through  which  the  great 
life  of  soul  breaks  into  the  world  but  always  in  restricted 
forms.  The  philosopher,  Schelling,  thought  mind  and 
nature  at  root  identical  but  Schiller  is  more  dualistic  and 
regards  the  body  as  a  "mechanism  for  inhibiting  con- 
sciousness." "With  our  brains  we  are  able  to  forget." 

Still,  the  mind  is  in  rapport,  however  dim,  in  contact, 
if  not  indeed  continuous  with  a  larger  consciousness  of 
unknown  and  perhaps  universal  scope  that  is  disclosed  to 
us  in  our  subliminal  self.  On  this  view  the  brain  does 
not  secrete  thought  but  obstructs  it  like  a  bad  conductor, 
so  that  when  the  thought  currents  of  the  great  Autos 
make  the  nerves  glow,  the  phosphorescence  or  incan- 
descence caused  by  the  resistance  of  the  brain  is  what 
appears  to  our  fragmentary  subliminal  mind  as  con- 
sciousness. Ideation  is  thus  a  transmissive  function  of 
the  brain  and  when  it  perishes,  personality,  which  means 
limitation,  is  dissolved  into  the  larger  life  of  the  whole. 
Mind  stuff,  like  force  and  matter,  may  preexist  in  minute 
and  disseminated  fragments,  which  our  bodies  mass  and 
our  brains  combine  into  what  we  call  souls.  And  on  this 
view  these  fragmentary  psychic  elements,  whether  they 
be  combined  in  a  human  or  even  animal  ego  or  not,  must 
also  be  immortal  for  all  the  reasons  we  are.  Perhaps  the 
highest  combinations  may  be  grouped  into  yet  higher 
beings,  which  would  be  resolved  back  again  into  us  on 
their  way  to  more  elemental  states. 

If  our  soul  is  the  mouthpiece  of  an  absolute  soul,  as 
the  word  persona  is  often  interpreted  to  imply,  inade- 
quate though  it  be  it  is  still  to  those  lower  mausolized 
500 


THE  PSYCHOLOGY  OF  DEATH 

souls  somewhat  as  the  more  definite  and  absolute  soul  is 
to  us;  and  as  their  voices  are  absorbed  in  us  so  we  are 
in  infinite  being.  We  are  bundles,  vincula,  or  paren- 
theses of  more  ultimate  elements  that  preceded  and  will 
survive  us,  but  we  are  somehow  helping  these  immortal 
components  on  to  their  own  goal,  so  that  the  real  value 
of  life  is  theirs  and  not  ours.  But  if  subliminal  functions 
are  most  immortal,  the  dissolution  of  our  consciousness 
might  be  desiderated,  for  organization  obscures  the  ulti- 
mate reals  and  the  massing  of  lower  monads  involves  a 
larger  sum  of  arrest,  so  that  perhaps  our  lives  really 
hinder  rather  than  help  on  the  cosmic  process  of  evolu- 
tion or  redemption.  As  in  chemistry  the  more  complex 
combinations  are  unstable  and  tend  to  disintegrate,  so 
the  higher  psychic  compounds  we  cause  and  that  make 
our  minds  persist  a  while  will  be  resolved  into  lower  and 
simpler  ones  that  outlast  them.  Thus,  at  best  the  prob- 
lem and  conduct  of  our  earthly  life  would  be  akin  to  that 
of  a  careful  breeder  who  would  leave  permanent  varia- 
tions in  the  vegetable  and  animal  species  to  be  cultivated 
that  would  persist  long  after  he  himself  is  forgotten.  If 
this  soul  of  the  world  is  conscious,  as  we  are,  death  is 
lapsing  down  the  evolutionary  scale.  But  this  ideolatry 
of  consciousness  is  passing.  And  if  the  unconscious  is 
higher  and  the  basal  cosmic  energies  are  greater,  more 
perfect,  and  more  important  than  our  psyche  and  soma, 
then  we  have  lost  our  sense  of  direction  and  devolution 
is  really  upward. 

VII.  As  to  the  philosophic  attempts  to  prove  the  doc- 
trine of  personal  immortality,  no  genetic  psychologist 
can  to-day  despise  even  the  most  proletarian  form  of 
belief  in  a  principle  that  survives  death.  Although  the 
time  is  past  when  the  old  theological  arguments  for  im- 
mortality are  convincing,  save  to  those  whose  religious 
development  has  been  arrested,  they  will  always  deserve 
respect  not  only  because  they  have  done  so  much  to 
501 


SENESCENCE 

sustain  great  souls  in  the  past  but  because,  as  we  now 
interpret  them,  they  mean  a  larger  and  more  complete 
life  for  man  here  in  the  future.  Disregarding  these,  we 
must,  however,  briefly  pass  in  review  the  chief  views  that 
the  philosophic  minds  have  evolved  that  the  soul  lives  on. 
We  begin  with  Plato,  who  finds  not  one  but  many 
proofs  of  it.  In  the  Phaedrus  he  finds  it  in  the  spon- 
taneity and  power  of  self-motion  of  the  soul.  In  the 
Timaeus  he  finds  it  in  the  fact  that  the  soul  is  the  chef 
d'muvre  of  the  world,  so  wondrous  and  beautiful  that 
the  gods  would  and  could  not  really  let  it  die.  Elsewhere 
he  finds  proof  of  its  immortality  in  the  soul's  struggle  for 
knowledge,  the  impulse  to  progress  to  ever  more  general 
ideas,  which,  as  we  have  seen,  he  thought  akin  to  death. 
Again,  he  deemed  it  immortal  because  he  thought  no  sin 
or  evil  could  kill  it.  Once  more,  as  all  that  live  must  die, 
so  the  correlate  must  hold  that  all  the  dead  live  or,  as 
Cebes  puts  it,  the  latter  is  a  necessary  postulate  to  the 
idea  of  life.  The  soul,  too,  is  simple  and  undecomposable 
and  so  can  never  be  destroyed.  His  doctrine  of  rem- 
iniscence was  that  we  remember  previous  incarnations, 
preexistence  being  long  thought  to  be  as  necessary  and 
as  demonstrable  as  postexistence.  Plato  found  Greek 
life  and  mind  confused  and  sought  by  cross-examination 
and  induction  in  the  psychic  field  to  attain  a  few  fixed 
ideas  that  the  soul  could  anchor  to  in  the  sophistic  flux, 
minds  be  drawn  together,  and  Greece  thus  saved  from 
disintegration  as  the  old  theological  views  crumbled. 
The  products  of  all  this  Socratic  midwifery  were  basal 
concepts,  the  eternal  patterns  of  which  by  participation 
in  things  made  them  real.  These  Aristotle  and  many 
later  writers  elaborated  and  defined  as  a  table  of  cate- 
gories and  in  nature  they  were  interpreted  as  summa 
genera  or  fixed  species  or  types.  It  was  the  persistence 
of  belief  in  these  that  both  Darwin  and  Locke  attacked. 
The  species  and  entities  of  the  scholastics,  which  under- 

502 


THE  PSYCHOLOGY  OF  DEATH 

lay  even  the  doctrine  of  the  Eucharist,  and  not  only 
nativism  and  apriorism  but  all  forms  of  philosophic 
realism,  as  well  as  absolutism,  metaphysics,  ontology, 
rational  transcendentalism,  the  passion  for  deducing 
conclusions  from  presuppositionless  data  elsewhere 
derived,  and  even  the  Stoic  and  Kantian  conscience — all 
rest  upon  the  assumption  of  definite  and  abiding  norms 
in  nature  or  mind  that  are  simple  and  undecomposable 
by  psychic  analysis  and  from  which  all  thinking  starts 
and  in  which  it  ends.  Thus  the  doctrine  of  ideas  has 
been  the  key  not  only  to  philosophic  orthodoxy  but  to 
much  of  the  thought  and  most  of  the  great  controversies 
of  the  world.  Not  only  theologians  but  Descartes, 
Spinoza,  Fichte,  Hegel,  and  also  no  less  but  in  a  differ- 
ent manner,  mystics,  illuminati,  rationalists,  scientists  in 
their  quest  for  constants  and  laws  of  nature,  and  even 
the  codifiers  of  Roman  law,  were  all  inspired  by  belief 
in  attaining  ultimate  principles,  and  all  these  were  look- 
ing toward  immortality. 

Now,  all  noetic  theories  of  immortality  agree  in  hold- 
ing that  it  is  attained  when  the  intellect  intuits  or  grasps 
one  or  more  of  these  ultimate  truths  and  thus  partakes 
of  or  participates  in  their  perdurability.  They  are  so 
high  and  abstract  that  Plato  considered  philosophy  not 
only  as  the  withdrawal  from  sense  and  the  world  toward 
the  solitariness  of  the  infinite  but  as  the  active  practice 
of  death.  Hegel  thought  them  the  inner  constitution  of 
the  mind  of  God,  and  to  know  God  is  eternal  life.  The 
great  bliss  and  peace  of  what  Aristotle  described  and 
praised  as  the  theoretic  life  have  thus  often  been  inter- 
preted as  a  foretaste  of  heaven.  Thus  the  love  and 
struggle  for  knowledge  have  been  said  to  be  motivated 
by  the  desire  for  an  incorporeal  existence. 

Wordsworth's  "truths  that  wake  to  perish  never," 
"high  instincts  before  which  our  mortal  nature  trembles 
like  a  guilty  thing  surprised,"  is  based  upon  the  doctrine 

503 


SENESCENCE 

of  reminiscence.  When  the  soul  has  attained  the  uncon- 
ditioned, and  even  when  it  experiences  a  love  that  is  felt 
to  be  stronger  than  death,  or  a  pure  autonomous  ought- 
ness,  or  conceives  the  idea  of  God  as  the  greatest  and 
best  being,  which  Descartes  said  it  could  not  do  if  such 
a  being  did  not  exist ;  when  it  envisages  a  beauty  that  is 
transcending  and  seems  to  take  the  mind  above  time  and 
space  into  pure  being  and  whenever  we  reach  generaliza- 
tions of  such  a  high  degree  that  they  include  soul  and 
body,  life  and  death,  and  all  things  else,  man  has  been 
told  in  countless  ways  that  he  was  becoming  immortal, 
that  in  such  experiences  the  soul  was  outsoaring  mortal- 
ity, as  if  the  subject  were  parasiting  on  to  its  object, 
absorbed  in  ecstasy  of  contemplation,  till  the  subject  and 
object  fused  in  a  unique  way.  The  soul  that  harbors 
such  great  thoughts  and  has  passed  through  such  experi- 
ences thereby  acquires  a  quality  of  permanence,  whether 
it  acts  by  apperqus  or  by  severe  logical  ratiocination. 

All  such  arguments,  however,  from  their  very  nature 
are  fallacious.  Knowledge  is  not  participation  in  this 
sense.  A  being  of  low  may  know  one  of  a  far  higher 
order,  but  the  chasm  between  subject  and  object  remains 
unbridged.  To  know  beauty  and  power  is  not  to  attain 
them.  The  further  epistemological  assumption  that  the 
world  of  ideas  is  itself  a  projection,  just  as  subjective 
idealism  asserted  the  world  of  sense  to  be,  would  also  be 
necessary.  But  even  this  colossal  postulate  would  not 
suffice  for  a  world  that  is  all  eject  and  ends  as  well  as 
begins  with  man.  On  this  hypothesis  the  mind  creates 
its  own  saving  principle  and  was  saved  by  its  products. 
Indeed,  such  a  method  begs  the  whole  question,  which 
becomes  again  one  of  fact.  Does  or  does  not  such  a 
power  exist  in  our  psychic  nature?  The  only  possible 
support  for  such  a  hypothesis  is  the  degree  of  coherence 
of  its  own  parts  with  each  other  and  with  experience. 
All  such  arguments,  however,  are  really  pantheistic  and 

504 


THE  PSYCHOLOGY  OF  DEATH 

leave  little  room  for  personality  but  are  rather  destruc- 
tive of  it.  Nothing  individual  can  persist  in  the  absolute 
for  in  it  all  distinctions  are  merged. 

Connected  with  this  view  is  that  which  assumes  that 
because  we  have  the  idea  of  or  the  wish  for  immortality 
and  because  this  is  so  generally  implanted  in  human 
nature,  the  latter  is  a  lie  if  it  is  not  a  fact.  Of  this  class 
of  proofs  the  most  common  are  those  that  urge  it  because 
of  its  practical  utility  for  morality.  In  the  other-world- 
ness  of  early  Christian  centuries,  where  eschatology  was 
more  developed  than  cosmology,  fear  of  hell  and  hope  of 
heaven  performed  the  greatest  service  for  virtue  and  its 
progress  was  advanced  by  these  artificial  and  extraneous 
supports.  The  danger  is  lest  they  have  undue  weight 
and  be  relied  on  long  after  their  function  should  have 
been  progressively  replaced  by  the  conception  of  virtue 
as  its  own  reward.  Luther  thought  that  the  chief  motive 
of  morality  would  be  gone  if  there  were  no  future  life. 
Andrews  Naughton  said  there  could  be  no  religion  with- 
out it.  Theodore  Parker  said:  "If  I  perish  in  death  I 
know  no  law  but  passion."  Chalmers  urged  that  without 
it  God  would  be  stripped  of  wisdom,  authority,  and 
honor.  Walt  Whitman  exclaimed:  "If  rats  and  mag- 
gots end  us,  then  alarum !  for  we  are  betrayed."  Human 
nature  has  been  called  a  lie  and  God  a  liar  if  there  is  no 
future  life  and  those  who  do  not  desire  it  have  been  called 
in  reality  already  dead.  It  is  a  potent  motive  to  escape 
eternal  pain  and  secure  eternal  bliss  for  our  own  ego 
hereafter.  "If,"  says  one,  "our  souls  do  not  hold  the 
latchstring  of  a  new  world's  wicket,  then  goodbye,  put 
out  the  lights,  ring  down  the  curtain.  We  have  had  our 
turn  and  it  is  all  so  nauseating  that  even  suicide  is  a  wel- 
come spectacle."  One  need  only  glance  over  a  few  of  the 
five  thousand  titles  of  Alger's  very  incomplete  and  quite 
out-of-date  bibliography  upon  the  subject  to  be  able  to 
draw  up  a  long  list  of  desperate  things  that  would  happen 

505 


SENESCENCE 

in  the  world  and  that  individual  writers  would  do,  or  of 
imprecations  on  God's  character  and  the  nature  of  the 
universe,  if  it  were  proven  false  or  if  none  of  the  strands 
in  the  complex  net  of  theories  and  demonstrations  that 
have  been  flung  to  the  other  shore  should  hold.  All 
virtues,  piety,  honor,  integrity,  and  civilization  itself 
would  perish,  men  become  brutes,  God  a  malign  fiend 
gloating  over  the  unbridled  lust  and  supreme  selfishness 
that  would  slowly  sweep  man  from  the  earth,  etc. 

The  most  vivid  portraitures  of  heaven  and  hell  have 
been  made.  Isaac  Taylor  deemed  the  sun  heaven  al- 
though a  later  contemporary  thought  it  hell,  adding  that 
its  dark  spots  were  the  souls  of  the  damned.  The  great 
comets  in  the  last  century  were  called  hell  making  its 
rounds  to  gather  its  victims.  The  old  Saxon  catechist 
pronounced  the  setting  sun  red  because  it  looked  on  hell. 
Thus  the  flood  of  evil  now  held  in  restraint  would  deluge 
the  earth  and  chaos  break  loose  if,  when  pay  day  came, 
men  found  a  future  life  of  rewards  and  punishments 
bankrupt. 

All  this  assumes  that  it  is  proven  because  it  has  aided 
virtue  and  because  a  belief  so  general  must  be  true.  But 
even  the  good  Bishop  Butler  argued  that  men  must  be 
prepared  to  find  themselves  misled — "Light  deceives, 
why  not  life?"  From  childhood  to  the  grave,  from 
savagery  to  the  present,  man's  history  has  been  one  of 
disillusion  and  disenchantment.  His  mind  has  been  far 
more  fertile  of  error  than  of  truth.  Few  of  his  wants 
have  been  satisfied  and  no  wise  man  would  feel  secure  in 
arguing  from  desire  to  attainment.  The  impetuous 
diathesis  of  the  West  may  have  grown  neurotic  as  it 
became  free,  rich,  and  powerful,  but  it  is  all  unavailing. 
Despite  all  that  pragmatism  can  say,  truth  is  very  differ- 
ent from  utility.  In  view  of  all  this  we  might,  with 
Bishop  Courtney,  refute  all  proofs  of  post-mortem  exist- 
ence, insisting  that  all  men  die,  body  and  soul,  and  are 
506 


THE  PSYCHOLOGY  OF  DEATH 

extinguished  but  at  some  appointed  time  their  spirits 
are  resurrected  by  the  power  of  God.  The  other  alter- 
native is  more  familiar.  "If  our  ship  never  reaches  port 
and  if  there  be  no  haven,  it  becomes  us  to  keep  all  taut 
and  bright,  sails  set,  and  to  maintain  discipline."  All  we 
want  even  of  a  future  life  is  opportunity  for  virtue. 

A  special  form  of  this  argument  from  ideas  to  reality 
was  developed  by  Kant.  Reason  always  seeks  the  uncon- 
ditioned by  its  very  nature  and  nothing  but  the  summum 
bonum  will  satisfy  it.  This  includes  two  things,  perfec- 
tion and  happiness,  the  two  great  desires  of  the  ages. 
The  ancients  thought  each  implied  the  other.  The  old 
Hebrews  believed  that  righteousness  brought  happiness 
in  this  world.  The  Stoics  held  that  the  highest  joy  was 
implicit  in  the  practice  of  virtue  from  its  very  nature, 
while  the  Epicureans  taught,  conversely,  that  the  highest 
happiness  involved  virtue.  This  does  not  suffice.  The 
unity  between  the  two  must  not  be  analytic  but  synthetic 
and  causal.  That  is,  each  must  bring  out  the  other.  In 
the  world  of  experience  this  is  not  true  and  yet  they 
belong  together  and  so  must  find  each  other  in  a  higher 
intelligible  world. 

Thus  the  very  idea  of  immortality  is  the  greatest  per- 
fection joined  to  the  greatest  happiness.  They  must  be 
united  completely.  Whereas  in  the  phenomenal  world 
their  development  and  union  are  only  partial,  there  must 
be  an  infinite  progression  to  bring  them  completely  to- 
gether because  a  being  destined  for  perfection  cannot  be 
arrested.  If  this  w^re  the  case  there  would  be  no  per- 
fect virtue  and  we  are  immortal  because  the  latter 
must  be  attainable.  Thus,  heaven  and  hell  must  rise  and 
fall  together.  True,  the  sense  of  justice  by  which  we 
judge  life,  the  drama,  literature,  and  novels  demands 
that  the  good  always  get  their  reward  and  the  bad  their 
punishment.  This  instinct  is  very  deep  and  underlies  law 
and  society  but  we  have  no  warrant  for  believing  that 

507 


SENESCENCE 

the  universe  is  built  upon  this  principle.  There  is  abun- 
dant evidence  to  the  contrary.  Neither  intellectual  intui- 
tion nor  conscience  are  constitutive  principles.  More- 
over, only  the  Western  world  demands  personal  immor- 
tality, so  that  the  conviction  that  no  evil  can  befall  a  good 
man  is  only  a  sentiment  or  postulate.  Who  knows  but 
what  it  is  only  the  hubris  or  fatal  pride  of  man,  which  the 
gods  would  destroy,  that  has  impelled  him  to  believe  that 
his  wishes,  ideas,  or  even  his  ego  itself  are  too  good  to  be 
allowed  to  perish. 

Pluralistic  views  of  immortality  may  be  very  roughly 
grouped  together.  Howison,18  for  example,  makes 
pluralism  absolute  by  advocating  an  eternal  or  meta- 
physical world  of  many  minds,  all  self-active,  the  items 
and  orders  of  experience  of  which  constitute  real  exist- 
ence, even  time  and  space.  About  everything  is  logically 
implicit  in  their  self-developing  consciousness,  and  the 
recognition  of  each  by  the  other  constitutes  the  moral 
order.  This  makes  an  eternal  republic  or  city  of  God, 
who  is  "the  fulfilled  type  of  their  mind  and  the  living 
bond  of  their  union."  They  control  the  natural  world, 
are  sources  of  law,  and  are  free,  for  their  essence  is 
mutual  relation.  In  the  world  of  spirits  God  is  not  soli- 
tary and  there  is  room  for  the  freedom  of  all.  The  joint 
movement  that  we  call  evolution  is  transient  and  can 
never  enter  the  real  world.  Creation  is  not  an  event  with 
a  date  but  a  metaphor.  The  key  of  everything  is  con- 
science and  teleology.  This  view  differs  from  Leibnitz's 
monadology  only  in  denying  grades  and  castes  in  these 
fulgurations  of  God.  It  makes  objects  in  nature  the 
manifestations  of  mental  activity  and  therefore  just  as 
real  as  they.  So  the  eternal  reality  of  the  individual  is 
the  supreme  fact. 

Royce,  too,  does  not  teach  a  psychology  without  a  soul. 

"  The  Limits  of  Evolution  and  Other  Essays,  New  York,  1901. 

508 


THE  PSYCHOLOGY  OF  DEATH 

Individualities  are  basal  and  Ideological.  They  are 
aspects  of  the  absolute  life  and  therefore  have  a  mean- 
ing. But  in  this  present  life,  much  as  we  strive  to  ioiow 
and  love  individuals,  there  are  no  true  individuals  which 
our  present  minds  can  know  or  express.  As  we  strive, 
therefore,  to  find  real  others,  we  realize  that  all  we  know 
of  them  is  but  a  system  of  hints  of  an  individuality  not 
now  revealed  to  us  which  cannot  be  represented  by  a  con- 
sciousness that  is  made  up  of  our  own  limited  experience. 
Therefore  the  real  individualities  we  loyally  seek  to  ex- 
press get  from  the  absolute  viewpoint  their  final  expres- 
sion in  a  life  that  is  conscious,  the  only  life  that  idealism 
recognizes  and  that  in  its  meaning,  but  not  in  time  and 
space,  is  continuous  with  the  fragmentary,  flickering 
existence  wherein  we  now  see  so  dimly  our  relations  to 
God  and  to  eternal  truth.19 

This  argument,  so  dear  to  and  so  ably  advocated  by 
its  author,  is  obviously  suggested  by  the  Kantian  pos- 
tulate. Is  it  true  in  fact,  however,  that  the  closest  com- 
panionship, friendship,  and  even  love  do  not  take  us  to 
the  real  individuality  of  the  objects  of  these  impulsions? 
Though  man  has  always  been  gregarious  and  social,  it 
would  seem  that  this  instinct  is  abortive  if  Royce  is  cor- 
rect and  also  that  the  reality  of  such  an  individuality  as 
he  postulates  would  not  be  conscious  but  rather  trans- 
conscious  or  frankly  unconscious. 

Miss  Calkins  in  her  various  writings,  although  not 
consciously  intent  upon  proving  immortality,  belongs  to 
this  group.  The  constant  sense  of  self,  which  she  pos- 
tulates in  the  teeth  of  the  modern  studies  of  multiple  per- 
sonality, harks  back  to  Descartes  and  she  seems  to  be  a 
good  illustration  of  Royce's  persistent  quest  for  a  self 
that  from  its  very  nature  cannot  be  known,  a  quest  that 
in  her  has  its  chief  strength,  if  analytically  considered,  in 

19  The  Conception  of  Immortality.  Also  The  World  and  the  Individual. 
509 


SENESCENCE 

the  personal  satisfaction  coming  from  the  subconscious 
reinforcement  by  reading  and  thinking  in  maturity  of  a 
juvenile  stage  of  development,  which  originated  in  a 
theological  and  here  deploys  in  a  metaphysical  stage. 

C.  T.  Stockwell 20  assumes  that  there  is  something 
related  to  the  germ  plasm  from  which  the  individual 
sprang  as  it  is  to  the  rest  of  the  body,  and  Shaler 21  con- 
cludes: "We  may  therefore  say  that  the  most  compli- 
cated part  of  life  is  not  that  which  goes  out  with  the 
body's  death  but  that  which  is  cradled  in  the  infinitesimal 
molecule  that  is  known  to  us  as  the  germ  of  another  life 
evolution."  Edwin  Arnold  "  is  platonic  in  assuming  that 
life  is  so  beautiful  that  "we  may  rightly  feel  betrayed  if 
dysentery  and  maggots  end  everything."  So  our  fears 
may  be  as  ridiculous  as  those  of  Don  Quixote  hanging 
from  a  window  by  the  wrist  over  what  he  thought  was 
an  abyss  but,  when  the  thong  was  cut,  falling  only  four 
inches.  Such  an  authentic  and  transfiguring  Yes  might 
be  pronounced  if  we  could  recombine  the  chemical  ele- 
ments of  a  man  analyzed  in  the  South  Kensington 
museum  into  a  vigorous  youth.  An  anonymous  author 
asks  why  should  the  soul,  the  noblest  and  last  goal  of 
evolution,  perish  and  the  cosmos  throw  away  its  crown. 
It  is  the  entelechy  of  all  evolution.  In  general  the  best 
survive  and  only  the  worst  become  extinct.  The  great 
biologos  has  wrought  from  the  beginning  to  give  itself 
an  organ  to  think  through  and  mirror  itself  in,  and  this 
momentum  of  self-preservation  is  too  great  to  be  entirely 
arrested  at  death.  So  individuality  must  have  absolute 
worth  and  be  eternized  because  it  is  the  key  to  and  the 
paragon  of  existence.  It  must  be  an  ens  realissimum 
because  it  has  cost  so  much.  Democracy,  too,  hyper- 


1  The  Evolution  of  Immortality. 
1  The  Study  of  Life  and  Death. 
'Death  and  Afterward. 


510 


THE  PSYCHOLOGY  OF  DEATH 

trophies  individuality.  The  Orient  knew  one  was  eter- 
nal ;  the  Middle  Ages  knew  a  few  were ;  and  only  lately 
did  man  begin  to  think  all  were  so.  Our  motto,  thus, 
must  be  Impavi  progrediamur  shouted  with  bravura. 
Self-conscious  life  is  the  highest  of  all  possible  categor- 
ies, the  model  of  all  other  units  by  which  they  are  under- 
stood, and  not  merely  a  symbol  of  ultimate  reality  but 
the  thing  itself. 

S.  D.  McConnell  revives  the  somewhat  patristic  idea 
that  man  is  by  nature  mortal  but  is  also  immortable  and 
can  attain  another  life  by  piety  and  knowledge,  as  of  old 
the  Eucharist  developed  the  potentiality  of  another  life 
or  as  the  infant  is  a  man,  only  dynamically.  Man  may 
become  indestructible  by  a  higher  process  of  biogenesis. 
John  Fiske,  too,  says,  "At  some  period  in  the  evolution 
of  humanity  this  divine  spark  may  have  acquired  suffi- 
cient concentration  and  steadiness  to  survive  the  wreck 
of  material  form  and  endure  forever."  To  be  deified  by 
righteousness  would  be  a  fit  climax.  This  life  is  a  period 
of  probation  and  gestation  in  a  new  sense.  Thus,  too, 
hell  is  obsolete  and  the  bad  die,  so  that  the  great  choice 
is  now  between  continuation  and  extinction.  Some 
crude  prelusions  of  this  were  found  among  the  Taoists, 
who  held  that  "the  grosser  elements  of  man's  nature 
may  be  refined  away  and  immortality  attained  even  in 
this  world."  This  could  be  done  by  an  elixir  of  life,  the 
desire  to  discover  which  a  century  or  two  before  and 
even  after  Christ  became  in  many  places  a  veritable 
craze.  So-called  pills  of  immortality  taken  in  connection 
with  certain  rites  and  regimen,  like  alchemy,  which  could 
make  gold  out  of  baser  metals,  would  purge  away  mortal 
elements  and  transfiguration  and  sublimation  might 
result,  even  for  animals.  But  where  do  we  draw  the 
line  between  the  mortal  and  immortal,  for  this  may  be  as 
far  above  as  the  Taoists  thought  it  was  below  us  ? 

All  arguments  of  this  kind  are  provincial.    Man  may 


SENESCENCE 

be  a  mere  microbe  on  our  little  dirt  ball,  which  the  high 
gods  could  hardly  see  if  the  lentiform  Milky  Way  were 
the  object-glass  of  a  celestial  microscope.  What  reason 
have  we  to  think  that  the  cosmos  accepts  us  at  our  own 
valuation  ?  The  great  sphinx  has  for  ages  suckled  chil- 
dren at  its  breast  only  to  destroy  them  with  its  claws 
and  when  men  die  it  recks  and  cares  not.  As  Fechner 
says,  the  plant  world  might  say  it  was  supreme  and  that 
insects,  animals,  and  men  lived  to  manure  its  seeds. 
Vegetation  preceded,  nourishes,  and  might  at  any  time 
send  out  bacteria  and  miasma  to  rid  the  world  of  all 
animal  life.  Man  is  perhaps  mean  compared  to  the 
denizens  of  other  worlds  and  even  his  type,  so  precious 
compared  to  individuals,  may  be  worthless  or  serving 
other  ends.  Despite  his  decadent  but  titanic  pride  and 
monumental  nescience  of  self  he  is  really  pathetic.  So 
tempting  to  the  vengeance  of  the  gods  is  his  pride  that  to 
be  disappointed  about  another  life  serves  him  right.  The 
great  saurians  were  once  the  highest  creatures  and 
seemed  the  pets  of  nature  and  the  goal  of  all,  but 
although  their  period  was  far  longer  than  man's  they 
have  passed.  So,  perhaps  the  superman  will  sometime 
quarry  and  explore,  trace  by  trace,  the  evidences  of  a 
human  biped  representing  our  own  stage  of  existence, 
and  man  as  he  is  to-day  be  classified  in  a  tongue  as  yet 
unborn.  Are  we  really  nearer  any  ultimate  goal  than 
was  the  amphioxus?  We  may  be  only  a  link  to  the 
higher  man  and  that  link  may  sometime  be  missing. 

What  right  have  we  to  assume  anything  so  sacrosanct 
and  fetchingly  irresistible  in  the  human  type  that  the 
great  Goodheart  will  never  seek  to  evolve  anything  bet- 
ter but  accept  us  as  a  stereotype  of  finality.  Such  sup- 
positions are  naive  and  man  as  a  race  ought  to  rejoice  if 
he  can  serve  even  infinitesimally  in  a  greater  purpose. 
In  fact,  in  many  quarters  it  is  now  bad  form  to  even  dis- 
cuss the  question  of  personal  immortality  because  the 

512 


THE  PSYCHOLOGY  OF  DEATH 

world  is  becoming — in  the  phrase  of  Osier — Laodicean, 
indifferent,  or  even  antagonistic  to  such  views  and  leaves 
passionate  affirmations  of  a  future  life,  so  in  fashion  in 
the  days  of  Tennyson  and  Browning,  to  mystics,  clerical 
rhapsodists,  pectoralists,  or  to  those  steeped  in  cardiac 
emotions. 

There  are  many  reasons  challenging  the  generality  or 
strength  of  the  desire  for  another  life.  From  a  question- 
naire of  the  Psychic  Research  Society  it  was  found  that 
very  many  did  not  feel  it  of  urgent  importance,  did  not 
wish  to  know  for  certain  about  it,  and  many  did  not 
desire  it,  although  a  few,  like  Huxley,  "would  prefer 
hell,  if  the  conditions  were  not  too  rigorous,"  to  annihila- 
tion. Perhaps  we  are  still  haunted  by  submerged  rem- 
iniscences of  the  immortality  of  our  primeval  unicellular 
ancestors,  which,  as  we  have  seen,  divide  forever  and 
never  die.  Man  is  certainly  at  present  a  very  defective 
creature,  a  bundle  of  anachronisms  with  organs  new  and 
old.  Even  the  aged  die  with  a  minority,  and  very  often 
a  majority  of  their  organs  and  faculties  charged  with 
potencies  of  a  longer  life.  Man  may  be  not  a  paragon 
but  a  fluke  or  sport  of  the  anthropoid  apes  and  his  death 
is  commonly  a  gruesome  execution  by  microbes,  acci- 
dents, or  hereditary  handicaps.  His  sex  nature  may  be 
abnormal.  Unlike  the  beasts,  he  seems  to  have  lost  his 
hygienic  or  dietetic  instinct  or  conscience.  He  knows 
more  than  he  can  practice.  His  consciousness  is  often 
abnormal  and  not  remedial  as  it  should  be.  It  is  very 
fallible,  always  partial,  and  by  no  means  the  oracle  he 
has  deemed  it  to  be.  It  may  be  nothing  but  a  thing  of 
shreds  and  patches,  extemporized,  accidental,  transient, 
made  up  of  fragmentary  outcrops  of  unconscious  forces 
that,  deep  below  the  threshold,  rule  his  life.  To  truly 
know  himself  he  must  go  down  stratum  by  stratum, 
study  every  outcrop  of  older  formations,  every  denuda- 
tion caused  by  disease,  every  psychic  fossil  of  tics,  obses- 

513 


SENESCENCE 

sions,  whims,  every  anatomical  clue,  every  hint  from 
comparative  psychology,  disease,  crime,  rudimentary 
organs  of  body  or  soul;  and  in  his  efforts  to  maximize 
himself  must  realize  that  if  all  the  studies  of  his  nature 
that  have  been  made  were  to  be  depurated  of  the  lust  for 
a  future  life  it  would  leave  a  vast  void,  for  the  passion 
for  immortality  has  left  its  mark  on  all  his  cultural  his- 
tory. 

But  the  fear  of  death  and  the  forms  of  mitigating  this 
fear  are  chiefly  because  man  still  dies  young.  If  we  had 
experienced  and  explored  senescence  fully  we  should 
find  that  the  lust  of  life  is  supplanted  later  by  an  equally 
strong  counterwill  to  die.  We  should  have  no  immor- 
tality mania  for  we  should  be  satisfied  with  life  here 
without  demanding  a  sequel  to  it.  Our  present  dreams 
of  all  forms  of  post-mortem  existence  would  become  a 
nightmare.  True  macrobiotism  means  not  only  more 
years  but  completeness  of  experience,  absence  of  repres- 
sion and  limitation.  Had  we  lived  out  the  whole  of  our 
lives  and  drained  all  the  draughts  of  bitter  and  sweet 
that  nature  has  ever  brewed  for  us,  we  should  feel  sated. 
The  fact  is,  man  is  now  cut  off  in  his  prime  with  many 
of  his  possibilities  unrealized.  Hence  he  is  a  pathetic 
creature  doomed  to  a  kind  of  Herodian  slaughter  and 
because  he  has  dimly  felt  this  he  has  always  cried  out  to 
the  gods  and  to  nature  to  have  mercy.  He  has  imagined 
answers  to  the  heartrending  appeal  he  shouted  into  the 
void:  if  a  man  dies  shall  he  live  again?  and  on  the  war- 
rant of  fancied  answers  has  supplemented  this  by  an- 
other life,  which,  when  psycho-analyzed  in  all  its 
processes,  means  only  that  he  has  a  sense  that  the  human 
race  is  unfinished  and  that  the  best  is  yet  to  come.  And 
so  it  is.  Man's  future  on  this  earth  is  the  real,  only,  and 
gloriously  sufficient  fulfillment  of  this  hope.  It  will  be 
found  only  in  the  prolonged  and  enriched  life  of  posterity 
here.  The  man  of  virtue  will  realize  all  desires  and  live 


THE  PSYCHOLOGY  OF  DEATH 

himself  completely  out  so  that  nothing  essentially  human 
will  be  foreign  to  his  own  personal  experience. 

Thus  the  wish  for  and  belief  in  immortality  is  at  bot- 
tom the  very  best  of  all  possible  augurs  and  pledges  that 
man  as  he  exists  to-day  is  only  the  beginning  of  what  he 
is  to  be  and  do.  He  is  only  the  pigmoid  or  embryo  of  his 
true  and  fully  entelechized  self.  Thus  when  he  is  com- 
pleted and  has  finished  all  that  is  now  only  begun  in  him, 
heavens,  hells,  gods,  and  discarnate  ghosts  will  all  fade 
like  dream  fabrics  or  shadows  before  the  rising  sun. 
All  doctrines  of  another  life  are  thus  but  symbols  and 
tropes  in  mythic  form  of  the  true  superman  as  he  will  be 
when  he  arrives.  The  great  hope  so  many  have  lived  and 
died  by  will  be  fulfilled,  every  jot  and  tittle  of  it,  not  in 
our  own  lives  but  in  the  perfect  man  whose  heralds  we 
really  are  without  knowing  it.  Deathbed  visions  will 
come  true  more  gloriously  than  the  dying  thought.  They 
hunger  for  more  life  but  the  perfect  man  will  die  of 
satiety  passing  over  into  aversion  and  the  story  will  be 
completed  not  in  a  later  number  but  in  this. 

Is  there  any  true  thanatophilia,  the  opposite  of  than- 
atophobia?  Does  the  most  complete  and  harmonious 
life  bring  not  only  the  quest  for  death  but  an  active  striv- 
ing toward  Nirvana?  Will  man  ever  come  to  observe 
the  approach  of  death  in  himself  and  in  others  just  as  we 
love  to  study  and  observe  growth  ?  The  records  of  cen- 
tenarians do  not  show  it ;  nor  do  the  superannuated  now 
generally  feel  it.  Even  Nothnagel,  who  observed  him- 
self clinically  almost  up  to  the  moment  of  his  death,  did 
not  find  it.  True  euthanasia  is  not  mere  resignation  or 
the  exhaustion  of  the  momentum  to  live  or  satiety  with 
life.  We  know  nothing  of  truly  natural  death.  But  we 
do  know  that  psychogenetically  the  old  lust  for  personal 
immortality  has  made  man  now  more  anxious  to  prolong 
and  enlarge  this  mundane  life.  We  can  no  longer  post- 
pone our  ideas  of  happiness.  The  great  and  good  things 

515 


SENESCENCE 

man  once  expected  beyond  he  now  strives  to  attain  here. 
He  wants  more,  not  less  in  this  life  because  he  expected 
so  much  of  the  other.  Thus  the  belief  in  immortality  is 
one  of  the  psychic  roots  of  modern  hygiene  although  the 
question  whether  it  can  all  go  over  into  orthobiosis  and 
humaniculture  still  remains  open.  If  all  were  cut  off  in 
their  prime,  like  Jesus,  for  example,  another  life  would 
be  even  more  desired  and  believed  in,  for  the  longer  and 
better  we  live  the  less  we  care  about  it.  Thus  the  answer 
to  the  problem  of  euthanasia  strictly  considered  must 
remain  in  abeyance,  at  least  until  humanity  is  more 
complete.  Biological  studies  and  new  therapies  may 
develop,  give  more  importance  to,  and  help  us  to  a  far 
better  knowledge  of,  the  gerontic  stage  of  life.  At  any 
rate,  I  hope  and  believe  that  the  data  I  have  gathered 
and  presented  in  this  volume  may  contribute  its  mite  to 
make  the  status  of  the  old  more  interesting  to  themselves 
and  to  increase  the  sense  that  they  still  owe  important 
duties  to  a  world  never  more  in  need  of  the  very  best  that 
is  in  them. 

THANATOPSIS 
By  WILLIAM  CULLEN  BRYANT 

When  thoughts 

Of  the  last  bitter  hour  come  like  a  blight 
Over  thy  spirit,  and  sad  images 
Of  the  stern  agony,  and  shroud,  and  pall, 
And  breathless  darkness,  and  the  narrow  house, 
Make  thee  to  shudder,  and  grow  sick  at  heart ; — 
Go  forth,  under  the  open  sky,  and  list 
To  Nature's  teachings,  while  from  all  around — 
Earth  and  her  waters,  and  the  depths  of  air — 
Conies  a  still  voice — Yet  a  few  days,  and  thee 
The  all-beholding  sun  shall  see  no  more 
In  all  his  course ;  nor  yet  in  the  cold  ground, 
Where  thy  pale  form  was  laid,  with  many  tears, 
Nor  in  the  embrace  of  ocean,  shall  exist 
Thy  image.    Earth,  that  nourished  thee,  shall  claim 

516 


THE  PSYCHOLOGY  OF  DEATH 

Thy  growth,  to  be  resolved  to  earth  again, 
And,  lost  each  human  trace,  surrendering  up 
Thine  individual  being,  shalt  thou  go 
To  mix  forever  with  the  elements, 
To  be  a  brother  to  the  insensible  rock 
And  to  the  sluggish  clod,  which  the  rude  swain 
Turns  with  his  share,  and  treads  upon.    The  oak 
Shall  send  his  roots  abroad,  and  pierce  thy  mould. 

Yet  not  to  thine  eternal  resting-place 

Shalt  thou  retire  alone,  nor  couldst  thou  wish 

Couch  more  magnificent.    Thou  shalt  lie  down 

With  patriarchs  of  the  infant  world — with  kings, 

The  powerful  of  the  earth — the  wise,  the  good, 

Fair  forms,  and  hoary  seers  of  ages  past, 

All  in  one  mighty  sepulchre.    The  hills 

Rock-ribbed  and  ancient  as  the  sun, — the  vales 

Stretching  in  pensive  quietness  between; 

The  venerable  woods — rivers  that  move 

In  majesty,  and  the  complaining  brooks 

That  make  the  meadows  green ;  and,  poured  round  all, 

Old  Ocean's  gray  and  melancholy  waste, — 

Are  but  the  solemn  decorations  all 

Of  the  great  tomb  of  man.    The  golden  sun, 

The  planets,  all  the  infinite  host  of  heaven, 

Are  shining  on  the  sad  abodes  of  death, 

Through  the  still  lapse  of  ages.    All  that  tread 

The  globe  are  but  a  handful  to  the  tribes 

That  slumber  in  its  bosom. — Take  the  wings 

Of  morning,  pierce  the  Barcan  wilderness, 

Or  lose  thyself  in  the  continuous  woods 

Where  rolls  the  Oregon,  and  hears  no  sound, 

Save  his  own  dashings — yet  the  dead  are  there ; 

And  millions  in  those  solitudes,  since  first 

The  flight  of  years  began,  have  laid  them  down 

In  their  last  sleep — the  dead  reign  there  alone. 

So  shalt  thou  rest,  and  what  if  thou  withdraw 

In  silence  from  the  living  and  no  friend 

Take  note  of  thy  departure?    All  that  breathe 

Will  share  thy  destiny.    The  gay  will  laugh 

When  thou  art  gone,  the  solemn  brood  of  care 

Plod  on,  and  each  one  as  before  will  chase 

517 


SENESCENCE 

His  favorite  phantom ;  yet  all  these  shall  leave 

Their  mirth  and  their  employments,  and  shall  come 

And  make  their  bed  with  thee.    As  the  long  train 

Of  ages  glide  away,  the  sons  of  men, 

The  youth  in  life's  green  spring,  and  he  who  goes 

In  the  full  strength  of  years,  matron  and  maid, 

The  speechless  babe,  and  the  gray-headed  man — 

Shall  one  by  one  be  gathered  to  thy  side, 

By  those,  who  in  their  turn  shall  follow  them. 

So  live,  that  when  thy  summons  comes  to  join 
The  innumerable  caravan,  which  moves 
To  that  mysterious  realm,  where  each  shall  take 
His  chamber  in  the  silent  halls  of  death, 
Thou  go  not,  like  the  quarry-slave  at  night, 
Scourged  to  his  dungeon,  but,  sustained  and  soothed 
By  an  unfaltering  trust,  approach  thy  grave, 
Like  one  who  wraps  the  drapery  of  his  couch 
About  him,  and  lies  down  to  pleasant  dreams. 

CROSSING  THE  BAR 
By  ALFRED  TENNYSON 

Sunset  and  evening  star, 

And  one  clear  call  for  me! 
And  may  there  be  no  moaning  of  the  bar, 

When  I  put  out  to  sea. 

But  such  a  tide  as  moving  seems  asleep, 

Too  full  for  sound  and  foam, 
When  that  which  drew  from  out  the  boundless  deep, 

Turns  again  home. 

Twilight  and  evening  bell, 

And  after  that  the  dark ! 
And  may  there  be  no  sadness  of  farewell, 

When  I  embark. 

For  tho'  from  out  our  bourne  of  Time  and  Place 

The  flood  may  bear  me  far, 
I  hope  to  see  my  Pilot  face  to  face 

When  I  have  crost  the  bar. 

THE  END 


UC  SOUTHERN  REGIONAL 


AA    000891895    5 


CENTRAL  UNIVERSITY  LIBRARY 
University  of  California,  San  Diego 


iPEx 


APR  0 


MAR  1  0 


Cl  39 


(7CSD  Libr. 


